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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28498674">Out of the Fire and Into the Frying Pan</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraLaClarividente/pseuds/ClaraLaClarividente'>ClaraLaClarividente</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Often Go Awry [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RWBY</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emerald tries, F/F, F/M, Gen, Hazel evades instrospection, Like it is barely taking root, Oscar has PTSD, Other, Ozpin and Ozma also, Salem is lost in the sauce of destruction, So lost in the sauce she notices nothing, Team JOYRide is best team, The whale's name is Monstra, kinda grew on me, very slight Ruby/Oscar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:40:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>24,192</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28498674</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraLaClarividente/pseuds/ClaraLaClarividente</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been 24 hours of devastation brought upon Salem and her nightmare fuel Grimm attack on Atlas. But the giant whale Grimm where she conducts her orchestra of chaos is soon to be blown up. In a mission to save Oscar and put a bomb inside the whale spewing Grimm, team JYR will try it's best to leave the monster successfully, or not at all.<br/>Meanwhile, Emerald goes back to her old ways, and Hazel ponders.<br/>The gears in the machine are breaking apart, and what Salem doesn´t know will hurt her.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Lie Ren/Nora Valkyrie, Oscar Pine/Ruby Rose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Often Go Awry [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2087559</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Part I</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello, this is my first story using this platform. This is the brainchild of a two month long hiatus and my constant musings on what would happen taking in consideration that while each character is based on a fairytale personality, but thrust into other stories' setting. This is what happens when Hansel decides to help the evil witch eat more kids, when Alladin is scared to steal, when Mulan is the one infiltrating the Huns, and when the Little Prince and the Aviator are lost in a whale?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Part I</p><p>In Salem’s not so humble opinion, orchestrating such a grand-scale siege on Atlas gave her a strange exhilaration that only chaos and destruction could bring to her shriveled, terrible heart. In the thousands of years that she had walked the land of Remnant, she learned that with simple, utter loathing, she would feel something akin to happiness if she really pressed down upon the bare threads of her feelings. While inside her gigantic whale Grimm, which she had nicknamed Monstra, for its terrifying size and violent lurches that brough upon Grimm from its liquified hatred, Salem had all but forgotten about anything else. In a state of such total detestation for humanity and life, she flowed with the same pure, strong hatred she began brewing in her soul after being punished by the Two Brothers. Though she has to admit it came on fast, she is overjoyed that her horrid feelings have lasted, her loathing of breathing, sentient creatures, fueling her through her evil endeavors. It could be said, in very short words, that Salem was really in her element, destroying things and killing people. And for someone who has dealt with difficulties truly feeling something enjoyable, she was absolutely lost in her moment of nightmare fuel attacks upon Atlas. Too distracted to see the gears of her plan stopping at will, and deciding that the machine they were integrated into, sucked ass.</p><p>At least, that was what Emerald thought the moment Tyrian told her and Mercury that Salem’s actual plans were to destroy the entire world, not create a new World Order. Considering the fact that she is inside a huge Grimm whale, surrounded by other creatures of Grimm, and monkeys with bat wings that hang upside-down from the whale’s esophagus, Emerald found this new information quite shocking.</p><p>Emerald felt trepidation, she knew what she had to do now. She knows in her hearts of hearts, that she is absolutely screwed. Of all her choices to have snowballed into this unbackable corner of her life, it had to be “join a cult to bring about the destruction of the world”. It makes no sense, at all, that a child so small would lie to his captors, why would the kid (Oz..pin?) lie when he has been beat up so badly. She wagers that one single punch from Hazel would break anyone’s resolve pretty quickly, but she still has her doubts.</p><p>Her mind made up, she wiped the cold sweat that permeated her forehead and leaned on a wall, spying the empty hallway. Feverish, she felt, but also terribly lonely and abandoned. But she took the lack of supervision from her peers as a small blessing, the only thing she needed to evade were the Seer Grimm, and probably Hazel. If she could make her way to the chamber where Salem had put the Relic, with her head still stuck to her shoulders, and make her way out of the whale, she could maybe escape this nightmare.</p><p>“Who am I kidding? It would take less than a day to find me and kill me.”, Emerald whispered to herself, sinking into the wall behind her, but stopping halfway, remembering that even the walls were alive and breathing. This disgusting fact did not sit well with her, so for the umpteenth time, she took a shallow breath and went back to the winding hallways inside the monster.</p><p>Her best bet, she thought, was to find the heart of the beast, and take the Relic. Only then, she could get her answers, and hopefully live to tell the tale.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Ren nodded to Yang and Jaune. Their best bet, he repeated with a numbness he thought behind him, was to detonate the bomb inside the heart of the beast.</p><p>Yang kept her silence on the pilot’s seat of the ship Winter had given them command of; the bomb small and unassuming was sitting inside a cubic briefcase that they felt was better left in the farthest corner of the ship. Though it was lightweight, it was cumbersome to hold when unnecessary, the emotional metric tonne of uncertainty made it very difficult to look at or even acknowledge. Despite the command of bringing a bomb into the belly of the beast spewing Grimm left and right came from the General himself, the original pilot had pleaded to not go in. He had seen the carnage the rivulets of liquified Grimm had done to the few soldiers and mechas it touched, and he was certainly not suicidal enough to commit to it. Jaune had let the man go on the speed-bike the Ace Ops hauled from the frozen tundra along with them. Better not to have extra baggage when they need an extraction, because they would make it out of there alive and with Oscar. That was one of the only convictions that Jaune had present in his mind, no more would they lose another teammate, not if they can help it.</p><p>“I see…an opening on its underside. Looks like we have a shot coming in, guys.”, Yang pinched her fingers in the holographic screen, and zoomed into the port.</p><p>“It looks like its backside.”, deadpanned Jaune, feeling nausea alongside the fear that he already had. Yang rolled her eyes at the blond and pressed the speed dial. Jaune thought about the nickname he received from Yang the first time they met. Even if what he thought would happen, and even if they made it out alive, he was not exactly looking forward for his new moniker in the near future. But at least it would be better than Dead Boy. Poop Boy would have to do.</p><p>“Its not like we can come knocking on Salem’s front door. She won´t expect anyone coming into the thing’s butt.”, she commented, barely dodging a Nevermore that almost collided with them. Ren made a grunt of disgust, just thinking they would come inside the whale’s backside made him almost drop the cloak he had thrown over themselves. But at least Jaune’s comforting hand on his shoulder let him feed off his friend’s aura to continue maintaining the shield up. He looked at Jaune and both shared a pained smile, the hand on his shoulder squeezing a bit in support.</p><p>Ren thought about Nora and asked himself if she would ever forgive him for trying a stunt like this. He also thought about what he could see in her feelings, he was curious but certain that Nora would, like himself, be surrounded by a gentle rain of pink petals. This thought helped him power through the fear and fatigue that hurt his bones. The thought of wide blue eyes, looking at him, maybe yelling at him for his carelessness, calmed him. Thinking of how happy she would be to have Oscar back in the team also gave him great strength.</p><p>He avoided thinking about the very possible probability of failing to bring Oscar back, and Yang and Jaune back to their friends. Dodging this line of thought, gave him more strength along side with his softer thoughts.</p><p>Ren looked through the helm of the ship, the tail of the whale was struggling to keep its upper body balanced on the edge of Atlas, and they were directly under its swinging appendage. From where the ship was hovering, he could barely see what looked like a port, halfway crushed due to its landing plateau being half in the air and halfway embedded on the floating continent. It seemed abandoned at most, and deeply dangerous and unsafe to land in, but it had to do. “Hold on tight, I have no idea how to stop this thing, so landing’s not gonna be perfect.”, Yang quipped in an attempt to light up the atmosphere in the ship, after all, Ren needed her and Jaune’s positivity, even if it was bleak.</p><p>Yang took a moment to reorganize her thoughts. If she did this right, they would be able to infiltrate and plant a bomb inside the huge whale taking residence in the outskirts of Atlas, coming back with their friend, and joining her sister and her team once more. If she succeeded, she mused, she would definitely have the courage to tell Blake what she feels for her. The fire in her soul became stoked at the possibilities of making it out alive. The blonde fighter took notice of the swinging pattern of the whale’s tail, and taking her chances, sped up the ship the moment the tail was raised.</p><p>The good thing is that the landing did not cause much of a clatter, the best thing was that Ren kept his cool and kept the veil around them.</p><p>The bad, not good, quite terrible part of it, is that the whale Grimm is an actual living thing and has disgusting by-products that coated the entire ship in its whole essence.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The whale, Monstra, was comprised of various chambers that had previously been carved out by Salem, thus making them hollow and practical for her personal usage. The fact that a living, breathing Grimm had its internal organs removed by magic did not mean that it only lived off magic and magic alone. In the caverns that ran along its body, what once were a digestive tract (for the biggest hallways), or arteries (narrow, secretive passages), you would find none other than a nuclear reactor in the cavity where the gut used to be. The system of nuclear energy was distributed through several ducts the whale carried in its body as one of Watt’s experiments, and it powered the whale enough for it to leave its natural habitat of the seas and fly through the frigid air of the Solitas´ tundra. It was a huge freak of nature, magic and science, and it had approximately two hours left before blowing up in smithereens.  </p><p>But nobody aboard the tortured creature of Grimm knew that, and thus, Hazel wiped his bloody knuckles with a rag in the apparent safety of his personal quarters. Oscar’s warning rang like a siren in his ears, the boy’s rattling voice was sure and firm, and while in visible excruciating pain, leveled his gaze with Hazel’s in such a strong way that sowed the seeds of doubt deep in his soul. He had left the torture chambers, in what he only guessed were the whale’s lungs, after the boy, dazed, and gaze a million yards away, asked to be drawn a lamb. The soft whisper threw him for a loop, and for a mere second thought it was a trick by Ozpin to stop the barrage of attacks. But he had never done that, with all the beatings that he took from his fists, so the alternative left was like a stone lodged in his belly.  It just was not right, and nothing would ever be right again, every aspect of Hazel’s existence, tainted. Doubt was a weed with fast growing roots, that lodged inside his heart and squeezed until he bled.</p><p>Looking over his clean hands, he could still see the splotches of red blood coating his skin. He scrubbed his hands clean again until they felt raw. Thinking about his inability to feel the punches he threw at the boy, Hazel felt parched, yet no matter how much he drank to quench the thirst, it would only grow stronger. He looked at his hands, and trembled. His hands had held his sister’s hands once; he firmly remembers teaching her to ice skate, he was twelve, while she had been barely six. He held her tiny hands, guided her while he skated backwards. But he had also held her hand one last time, before going to the mission where Gretchen was ripped apart by Grimm. He looked around, really actually looked at his surroundings and felt the weight of living crush his shoulders.</p><p>Was he really inside a giant Grimm, helping the Mother of all Grimm destroy a continent, and torture a fifteen-year-old kid? He was daily and nightly surrounded by the mere creatures that tore the soul out of his body, and only now in the thick of it, was he realizing what a fool he´d been? It could be seen that way, but Hazel is nothing if not stubborn, and even if personified selfless introspection were to punch him in the nose, he still would not be able to see it unless hard evidence proved or disproved what he had been suspecting ever since he set foot inside the whale. He was nothing but a thug, with the fists the size of truck wheels, and was quite adept at dissipating Grimm with one punch. Remembering the times he hacked at Salem’s body with an axe, her face still smiling like she enjoyed being teared apart pooled in his belly a feeling of disgust and nausea. But the worse part of that day was seeing how her flesh reached in disturbing little tendrils for its missing piece, and no matter how hacked her body was, it would patch itself anew in front of his very eyes. She had just said at the time that the new humans were just not like the original ones, like herself. But how none of that would matter if he joined her. And he did, out of fear of the disgusting creature that could not be slain. This last fact was the last thing on his mind as he left his room and stomped away.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The rattle of chains sent a shiver down Oscar’s side, making Ozpin inside his mind sigh. In an instant, he took over, and doubled down in pain immediately thereafter. It had been too long since he took over to spare Oscar the pain, but the boy was left so mangled he was not processing the pain. Instead, he rambled inside their shared headspace, dazed and confused. Each breath he took was hard on his ribs and Ozpin had the distinct feeling of sand coating the entirety of his mouth.</p><p>“Oz…hey…Oz.”, Oscar’s voice resonated in the air, light and airy, like he was about to blow over by a breeze. His body had been left on the dungeon’s floor, the chains that held Oscar up wore down from all the swinging his body made with each beat down, so Hazel had left the boy in a heap, the puddle of his own blood soaking what little clean patches of his clothes he had left.</p><p>“Oscar, I am sorry. Please rest, let me take care of the rest for now.”, Ozpin muttered, the metallic tang of blood mixing unpleasantly with the feeling of gravel on his tongue. He felt Oscar giggle tiredly, worry lodging itself in his own heart.</p><p>“When I was small, I wanted to have sheep ‘round the farm. But we only did crops, so I never had one.” Oscar sighed dejectedly but sprung back soon. “Won´t you draw me a lamb?”, Oscar demanded with urgency, his voice had turned childish, and sleepy. <em>Physical pain hurts the mind…is he regressing mentally, to protect himself? </em>With Oscar’s hand, he struggled to reach his forehead, and felt its temperature- feverish and sweaty. Ozpin felt a non-existing tug on Oscar’s charred jacket. “Lamb? Please?”, pleaded Oscar’s voice of his childhood.</p><p>With great effort, Ozpin twisted Oscar’s body and extended his arm, drawing on the clay of the floor. When he finished, he hummed, “I never ventured in the arts and crafts, so this is a lamb, to the best of my abilities.” Ozpin felt a hum along his mind, and then Oscar tutted.</p><p>“This one looks sick. Again.” The voice, not quite Oscar, insisted with a huff. Ozpin wiped a gloved hand across the floor, erasing the lamb that appeared to be ill. With renewed efforts, he tried for a stouter lamb. He presented it to not-quite-Oscar. He disapproved immediately.</p><p>“That is a goat, it has horns! A new one please.” Ozpin stared blankly at the ceiling, pondering about how their situation had turned this way. But he obliged the boy, nevertheless.</p><p>“What must I do to make a better lamb, then?” he asked with a sigh after another refusal to accept his poor attempts at drawing. He felt Oscar hum, almost as he was stroking his chin.</p><p>“I think about my garden at home, with bees, and birds and roses. The cherry tree and my swing in its branches, the white lilies that surround the porch. Some roses get picked because they have no thorns, but they die so soon. The other ones are too vain to let others pick them, but they secretly wish they were brought into the warmth of a kitchen.”, Ozpin heard how Oscar sighed contented, in a faraway daydream. Ozpin reached with Oscar’s hand, and griped at the scraps of clothes near where his heart would be and became saddened. The beat under his fingertips was not his own, so he felt shame and guilt immediately after thinking for a moment about what his heartbeat had been like, a year ago.</p><p>“I don’t have a garden anymore, so I can’t think of anything to draw a better lamb for you, I am sorry Oscar.”, Ozpin looked at the place where Hazel stood during his lashing out, the muscle memories of the beatings hitting him in his mind, and not doing anything to stop them. “I really do not deserve the garden I used to have.”</p><p>“That is okay. I will tell you about my favorite flower”, Oscar chirped in his aged-down voice. “it has no thorns and does not hurt when I touch it. I don’t want to pick it, because it will die, but I am thinking of giving it a pot big enough to grow into, and I swear.”, Ozpin felt Oscar’s voice turn ever so serious. “I swear I won’t let it die, nor grow thorns. I will get right onto it when we make it out of here.” Ozpin felt the lips of his host curve up, in hopeful glee. With this last statement, Oscar went quiet, probably resting his mind, finally asleep.</p><p>Alone once more, Ozpin looked at the last lamb he had drawn on the floor. It had been dubbed as “too sad”, and thus rejected by the tough critic in his mind. He chuckled, he had had a garden once, but Ozma came into his head and merged like all the souls before him, and he could not take care of it anymore.</p><p>He heard footsteps nearing the cell they were held in and looked back at his sad lamb. Perhaps, Oscar was the one trying to protect him and prepare him for what’s to come after the door opens. He took a steeling breath and felt with his soul the resting spirit inside of himself. He may be dead, and lacking his own body, but he will keep fighting tooth and nail to bring Oscar back to his own garden. And if possible, make him the last iteration of a long and forgotten caste of wizards burdened by the same task.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Slipping back to her former self had been all too easy, the same instinct and desire to live one more day thudded in Emerald’s chest as she looked left and right from her hiding spot. The corner in the winding hallways of the narrower passages served as better hideouts to wait out the Grimm making their rounds, just as the Mistrali back alleys served her well during her childhood and early teens. Avoiding the larger hallways, though more direct, helped her avoid the usual traffic of Seers and Flying Monkeys that hung overhead. It was downright disturbing to see that even these passageways pulsed and throbbed with the lurches the whale Grimm made to stay beached on the outskirts of the floating continent. It had been a nightmare to sleep in the quarters provided by Salem, knowing that the unsettling hum of the walls came from the Grimm itself, violated by Salem in such a way that it was nothing more than a suffering vessel and that with every lurch it made on air, the nuclear poison inside of it killed it even more. It just broke all the laws of nature, crossing a line that Salem just loved to trespass.</p><p> Emerald changed her grip on her weapons, the sweat that collected in her clammy hands bothered her to no avail. But still she trudged on, light on her feet, imperceptible as she has always been, and silent as a mouse. The narrow passageway she had arrived at, and was hiding about in the corner, overlooked the vault doors, where the relic had been stowed away. Strangely, she saw no Grimm guarding the doors, and instead of finding herself lucky, she rued the fact that the hallway was devoid of any activity-it was either her lucky day, or it was a trap.</p><p>She worried her lip and fell back on her heels, assessing the situation. Maybe it was empty, and the relic had been with Salem all along. Or maybe, Salem’s powers reached far and wide, and could actually decipher her intentions to flee the vessel. If she failed, nobody would care, except perhaps Mercury. But he would only stop a moment to regard her parting and keep on going his way. As much as she hated to admit it to herself, Cinder saw her only as an “asset”, the cold word making a hole in her heart. After all, she joined Cinder because she wanted a home, but she saw how the colorful students from Beacon had fun together, and spent time with each other and she felt so jealous. She can´t remember what she liked, cannot know what she enjoys, it had always been a fight to survive, that she never even stopped to think. If she had refused Cinder that day, would she even be alive? The uncertainty of that question, being dead but better off than inside a giant Grimm, or being barely alive but with the threat of a swift extermination hanging over her head was a sword chancing her neck.</p><p>“Either way this turns up, there’s no way in hell I’m making it out of here.”, she said to herself, afraid, and a bit more resolute. She looked around the hallway and ran to the vault’s doors. Unlike most doorways inside the Grimm vessel, it would not disintegrate when someone stood in front of it, it seemed to need a key to enter, otherwise she would never get in, like the laboratory where the whale’s gut seemed to be a long time ago. Emerald felt a certain breed of fury and disappointment laced with fear when she realized she had made the trip to the vault for nothing. If any Grimm came back around the bend to make its rounds, they would certainly tear into her, there is no chance for her to explain what she is doing without it looking like betrayal. Out of spite and anger, Emerald punched the double doors, a knot in her throat lodging itself firmly.</p><p>But the doors gave way, and dazedly, she pushed. When she stepped into the room, she felt her heart thud heavily in her chest with fear, coming face to face with Hazel, holding the lamp, and with tears in his eyes.</p><p>“You should leave.”</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Part II</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi! Sorry for the wait you guys. Work related issues!<br/>Hope you enjoy the second installment of Out of the Fire and Into the Frying Pan.<br/>As a warning, I would like to state that some things will bleed within this series, but they are minor. If you are curious, read the second work for this serie, called Three Blind Mice.<br/>As a second warning, I want to state that coming works under this series name have been planned and drafted while listening to the Tsubasa Chronicle's OST. Sorry.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Whatever Yang had expected to see once she put foot inside the Monstra, was nothing compared to the real thing. It was a hollow continuous cavity, that stretched in twists and turns into unforgiving hallways filled with wandering Grimm.  The walls were a pulsing red hue, that at times undulated just barely perceptibly, with marrow white barks running along the structure, which she assumed was the actual skeleton of the creature of Grimm. She doubted even Professor Oobleck, or Port, would have been able to envision such horror, or even guess what was inside a Grimm. She remembered one of the lessons in Beacon, that preached the inability to even dissect or maintain a Grimm subdued for long enough before they scattered in fumes. Yang supposed that ignorance was bliss, after all.</p><p>She glanced at Ren, who despite his experience keeping up his semblance for long periods of time, and aided by Jaune’s aura, was struggling to keep Tranquility under control. With a solemn nod, Jaune let her know that they were moving forward to first locate Oscar, and then, Gods know how, to set the bomb. The timer had been set the moment they were entrusted with its burden, and so, not much time was left before it detonated.</p><p>Yang noticed that Ren had decided to close his eyes, lest any of the creatures milling about distract him enough to drop the shadow he had over his team. Jaune’s hand on his left bicep was a silent but firm ‘<em>I won’t lead you astray</em>’ and Yang’s golden presence flanking his other side were the tether he needed to go on a blind path. And so, swathed in gold he walked to where their dear friend was held.</p><p>The winding corridors ahead of the group were confusing, and they were sure they had passed by the same door at least twice. Yang looked at the wall to her right, she had been keeping track of their path by planting Ember Celica’s ammo in the walls. She spotted one of the vials embedded deep in the muscle of the thing, and with a hum, she let Jaune know they were going the other way.</p><p>Ren did not know for how long they had been walking, but then his ears perked at muted whispers and pained moans coming from ahead of him. Focusing on the sound, he saw against his eyelids a golden flicker amongst the black and gray layout. His heart was thundering, he could hear the drums of his heartbeat in his ears. Taking a breath to compose himself, he tugged at his friends along the way into the amber glow he felt familiar.</p><hr/><p>Marrow did not have a good feeling about any of this, never mind the Grimm down in the fields below solidifying from some black goo. He was pretty sure he had a sixth sense for catastrophes, the hairs in the back of his neck would always stand on edge when his bullies in school planned to hurt him. He glanced at Winter, a statue of a woman looking at the Monstra with a-mile-long stare.</p><p>She had convinced the rest of his team to look for Penny on their own, while they stood their ground near the whale in case something went down. Marrow suspected that Winter expected the party of four (counting Oscar should they be able to find him, that is) to come back. Or so it would appear to be, judging by her iron grip on the ship’s control panel. Marrow cleared his throat, trying to get his superior officer’s attention.</p><p>“Ma’am, uh. How long do we stay on standby?” He received the famous Schnee Side-Eye, eponymous for making their recipients nervous and a blabbering mess.</p><p>“However long we need to, before we blow up in the sonic boom that bomb might create.”</p><p>“Ah. Oh. Kay.” Visibly uncomfortable, he sat back in the co-pilot seat, and looked at the hidden, almost demolished entrance that team JYR used. It seemed deeply unsafe, and to be quite honest, he knew he was not prepared to see whatever was in store for the kids from Beacon.</p><p>Marrow had only been part of the Ace Operatives for a little longer than a year and having spent most of his time as an Atlas Academy graduate doing rounds around Mantle, he had never strayed beyond the tasks that were thrust upon him. He was not like those kids, younger than him, but having seen such wild sights. He could tell by the little things, and the camaraderie they held between the two teams that they did not have the same cookie-cutter life other students from hunter academies had. Like he had. The jumpiness, the silent communication between them, and their polished teamwork, the near haunted look they had when Ironwood decreed Martial Law, as if they were expecting it… and their resolution afterwards. Marrow was lucky to have been selected, and yet still, he felt like the token faunus in the group. He had followed some of the Ace Ops exploits as a kid and later as a student, so he knew he filled the previous faunus’ spot. First Steppa, then Tortuga; it was like a formula he had to fulfill. He supposed it had to do with the “diversity program” that Ironwood had put forth when he took over from the previous general-Nick Chopra.</p><p>Before Ironwood it had been nearly unheard of faunus in the military, but after he was made General, it had become one of the career paths faunus in Mantle to better their families’ opportunities. He had seen the lofty pensions that some families received-in exchange for their family member being placed in a tiny box with their remains, that is. Nothing was free, and the system basically asked you to sell your soul in exchange of a slightly better life.</p><p>A quiet cough wrenched Marrow back from his thoughts, Winter was staring at him with an unreadable expression.</p><p>“I want you to be attentive of any strange movements around the area we just saw team JYR enter the Grimm. I am listening through the comms if something else comes up, alright?” Marrow nodded his understanding at her, and quickly set up the infrared system on the holographic screen to check for movement inside the Grimm.</p><p>“The readings show that they got in, but I think that they are advancing into deeper parts of the Grimm, their aura levels seem the same but they aren’t as clear in the image as before.”</p><p>“Good. Let me know of any changes. Give me time zero estimates.”</p><p>“They have an hour and a half, Ma’am.” A sort of heavy silence ensued between them. In the quiet, they could almost hear Lie Ren’s comments from an hour ago.</p><p>
  <em>You don’t want to be a part of it at all anymore.</em>
</p><p>“Ma’am-“</p><p>“I know. I am doing this because I had a duty of care, and I have someone to rely accountability to.” She interrupted; her gaze frozen on the spot the ship had disappeared minutes ago.</p><p>“But the General asked you-“</p><p>“I am not talking about the General at all, Marrow.” Winter’s fingers caressed the hilt of her sword, Brunhilde, its sibling forever lost in the Solitas tundra.</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>He had been about to turn into one of them, and he asked himself if at 20 years of age, would his mother receive his ashes and cry over his pristine, military issued urn? If this mission went south, would he have to face team RWBY and Nora, as they received empty urns?</p><p>For his sake, and the sake of others, he wished desperately that it would not come to it.</p><hr/><p>Ozpin gasped a deep breath when he heard a scuffle of feet outside the dungeon’s door. He steeled himself for the inevitable barrage of punches, kicks, and slaps to his face. Oscar was still sleeping inside his mind, so it was now up to him to protect the boy as much as he could. Not much could be done, save from using his remaining aura to heal Oscar’s wounds faster, but at the rate the punches were coming, much more time was needed to even begin healing the broken ribs. Ozpin felt ashamed, he remembered centuries of lives, but this is the youngest they’ve been…<em>hurt</em> in this magnitude. Usually if Ozma reincarnated young, it was during a time of relative peace, and did not make himself known until their new companion turned into an adult. Obviously, Oscar was an exception. This fact made Ozpin feel helpless in a way he has never felt in a long time, perhaps the teenaged brain was to blame-his emotions were very intense, and Oscar was a sensitive youth.</p><p>The heaving creak of the door opening brought Ozpin back from his musings. Alert and distraught, he glanced at the door, praying for Hazel to amble back instead of Salem. His eyes widened at the sight before him, and his heart accelerated in a frightened yet joyful thrum. He had been surprised in his long life, but not like this.</p><p>Before him, his old students stood in near shock and distress at the sight of Oscar’s body bloody and mangled on the floor. Quickly, they kneeled in front of him, of Oscar. Ozpin could not stop the flow of tears from dropping.</p><p>“Oscar, I’m sorry we took so long!” Yang took Oscar’s hands in her own, and Ozpin’s tears overtook his vision like a wave. He shook his head weakly, and gently squeezed her hands.</p><p>“No. I am sorry, Miss Xiao Long. To all of you, I keep being a nuisance.” The astonished look in Yang’s face spurred his tears even more.</p><p>“Is…Is Oscar there at all? Is he-“Jaune asked, kneeling by his head. His hands were on Oscar’s temple holding his head in place while he checked his pupils for any sign Oscar was concussed-which he was.</p><p>“He is asleep right now, tired. These tears are my own, if you must know. I-…even if you are not, I am glad to see you three.” His traitorous heart plummeted at the silence that received his sincere feelings-he knew logically that he was not welcome in the reunion they probably expected. He felt Yang’s hand untangling from Oscar’s, and in their absence, he closed them tightly. He closed his eyes, not wanting to watch them as they see him hurting like this. If he could go back to the recesses of Oscar’s mind, he would, but that would only mean more physical pain for Oscar. He was deeply acquainted with pain, so he welcomed it.</p><p>“…I am happy to see you too. I think, we are relieved at least.” Ren’s quiet voice broke the spell of his internal demons. He opened his eyes in surprise and looked at his student standing by the door of the dungeon. He felt more hot tears flow down tanned cheeks, the saltiness stinged the cuts around Oscar’s face. Yang sighed beside him and allowed herself a small smile before placing her hand on Oscar’s hair. <em>‘Like the caress of an older sibling that I missed’</em>. The thought alone made him pause and close his eyes.</p><p>
  <em>It was already beginning to happen. </em>
</p><p>“Um…Could you open your eyes? I need to see how messed up you are, uh, sir?” Jaune gently tapped the side of Oscar’s face, making Ozpin blink wildly in a stunned silence. Jaune’s blue eyes were gentle, but his brow was harried in genuine concern. A warm glow danced in front of his eyes, and he felt a spur of energy flow from his temples.</p><p>“I-I…what?” Ozpin spluttered, confused.</p><p>“Guys, hurry up!” Ren yell-whispered at them. “We don’t have much time before the timer goes off.”</p><p>Ozpin looked at his three students in bewilderment.</p><p>“Hey Prof, no hard feelings. We kinda get it.” Yang patted his head lightly. Ozpin felt himself gape; something was not connecting right in his head.</p><p>“Can you stand up?” Jaune looked at the widened eyes in front of him, confused and unfocused. Receiving no answer but the closing and opening of a mouth in a shell-shocked face, Jaune decided that Ozpin and Oscar had had too much going on while imprisoned. “Okay, maybe just get on my back.” Yang helped Ozpin stand up long enough for Jaune to offer his back to him.</p><p>Safely on Jaune’s back, the group made their way to the hallways. Ren held on Jaune’s arm this time, benefiting from the steady flow of his leader’s aura, Tranquility being once more taken over them to avoid the Grimm. Yang took the lead, her fists positioned ready to punch anything that came their way. The sway of Jaune’s footsteps soothed Ozpin, tiredness washing over him as he felt safer than he did hours ago. Abruptly, Yang turned to him.</p><p>“Do you by any chance know where…uh, What’s-Her-Face keep anything volatile?” Yang avoided saying Salem’s name inside her premises, a bit peeved by the power names have. Ozpin blinked a few times before answering.</p><p>“I believe that if you keep going down this corridor you might actually find Watts’ lab. May I ask why?”</p><p>Yang threw him a grin that reminded him of a shark.</p><p>“We got a bomb that’s gonna blow up in like forty minutes.” She patted the metal box she had hanging crossbody like a purse.</p><p><em>Well, may the Two Brothers be damned</em>, Ozpin thought in exasperation. Today was a never-ending surprise.</p><hr/><p>Emerald did not know what to do with her hands, they were inching for her weapons but any sound of a scuffle would alert any of the Seer that monitored the halls. She looked at Hazel, who appeared to have been crying, hold the lamp tentatively to her. She wondered if any of this was a test to prove her allegiance to Salem, and if she did not pass her judgement carried out by Hazel, she’d be forced into a battle.</p><p>The man in question thrust the lamp once again in Emerald’s general direction.</p><p>“What-What do you want me to do with <em>that</em>?” She spluttered.</p><p>“You came here for a reason, and I have already gotten the answer I needed. Just take this thing and leave while you can.” He pushed the lamp into her hands as he spoke, looking anywhere but her.</p><p>“You used it?!”</p><p>“Yes, and I did not like what it showed me. So, you should better scram, leave. Get out while you can, I could try to create a diversion.” She shook her head in disbelief at the man before her. He had been one of the most loyal to Salem, and this?</p><p>“But…what did you ask it?” Hazel scoffed at her and turned away. She hugged the lamp to her chest, the cold metal and crystal cooling her skin.</p><p>“You know already, Emerald. Just destruction, you and me, and everyone in this goddamned planet will not exist.” Hazel carded his fingers against his hair, ¿and continued. “You are young, you can run away from all of this if you hide well enough. I…know how to buy you some time.” Clutching the lamp like a lifeline, Emerald had half a heart to refute his offer. He seemed sincere, and it would be difficult for a person like Hazel to fake his misty eyes. Dejectedly, she walked up to the hulking man, who was pacing back and forth in front of the vault, deep in thought.</p><p>“Hazel, I-“she began to formulate her unexpected farewell, but she caught motion out of her peripheric vision. She startled, and whirled around to face the sudden movement, but was caught dead in her tracks when she found her old foes from Beacon standing in the hallways. Hazel bristled at her stillness and turned to see what was happening, soon an unreadable expression marred his face.</p><p>Yang activated her gauntlets carefully, cracking the knuckles from her flesh hand. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of Emerald in possession of the Relic of Knowledge. Behind her, Ren and Jaune came to an abrupt stop, jostling the poor boy in Jaune’s back. Oscar blinked blearily awake after he knocked his forehead with the back of Jaune’s head and stared in utter confusion at the scene in front of him.</p><p>“Knew that we had been too lucky till now.” Yang´s eyes locked into the hulking man. Jaune held his arm out in front of Ren, silently asking him to wait.</p><p>“How did you even get in without any of the Seer or Beringels sounding the alarm?” Hazel asked, adopting a defensive stance.</p><p>“Consider our visit here…auspicious then.” The blonde fighter smirked, daring the man to take a step in her direction. Hazel did not react, though, only sighed tiredly, and looked sideways to the ground.</p><p>“If we fight, we attract Grimm. I say we call a truce just for now.” Hazel said, putting his hands up, showing his empty palms. Jaune narrowed his eyes and looked at Ren.</p><p>“I don’t trust him, guys. Ren, can you-?”</p><p>“On it.” The black-haired empath cut Jaune and focused his attention on the burly man.  </p><p>He was a shock of emotions. Fear seemed to casually orbit as a halo of green petals around his head, the speed at which they were moving was accelerated but under enough control to keep them from flying out. Blue grief rained down on him in a tumultuous flurry, basking Hazel in its consuming essence, while a spark of orange was nestled just right from his heart. But the rest of him, a trickle of black fell gently about him, close to his skin and seemingly a comfort. Ren didn’t have anything to compare it to; it was a feeling he could not quite comprehend. Anger, fear, indignation, love, those were things he could understand, all which he had felt before. This gently but all-consuming void of darkness, it was uncomfortable to see on someone, but he had the hunch that it was a tricky thing, a comfort of make believe. Still, the mosaic of colors did not betray Hazel, so Ren had to hand it to the man, he was being honest.</p><p>Ren nodded his acceptance, surprising Yang and Jaune. Still, Yang was less accepting of this so-called truce.</p><p>“If you have something to offer, better say it now.” Jaune stepped closer to Yang and gestured to her with his head-as his hands were busy supporting Oscar on his back. “Yang here has a bomb, see that weird cube thing? It’s gonna blow in like twenty-five minutes.” Yang tapped the silver cube hanging from her shoulder, her smile looking more like a grimace than smug.  </p><p>Emerald widened her eyes at the trio of huntsmen from Beacon, and began to back away, but realized that either way she ran, she’d get killed.</p><p>Hazel only nodded, deep in thought as he hummed.</p><p>“Hm… this actually might work in our favor.” Hazel scratched his beard.</p><p>Oscar caught himself heaving a long-suffering sigh, painfully, but accepted the fact that most of the people surrounding him were nuts to the point of bravery. He locked eyes with Emerald’s red and frantic stare, and realized she had the lamp in her possession. <em>‘They must have summoned Jinn… that’s why Hazel is not using me as a punching bag!’</em>, Oscar thought in a weird elation that only comes after significant blood loss.</p><p>“I see you have used the lamp already; did you get your answers?” The teen asked Hazel, his voice was tired, and his voice rattled painfully as his ribs throbbed.</p><p>“What!?” Three heads turned to look at Oscar, he half shrugged with his least injured shoulder.</p><p>“What good’s gonna be one question we don’t even know? Besides, they really thought Salem was building a ‘new world order’” The trio nodded, even if they felt slightly annoyed at Oscar for telling them the name of the spirit that lived in the lamp, they knew exactly how it felt to be kept in the dark.</p><p>“Figures.” Sighed Ren dejectedly. Hazel stepped towards Yang, his hands still raised and palms visible.</p><p>“The kid was right. She only wants to off the entire world and hopefully herself.” Hazel looked at Yang in the eyes, trying to convey his honesty through his gaze. “I know she can’t be destroyed, but if you detonate that bomb close enough to her, it will take some time for her to…sew herself back together. I have seen it. It took her a few hours to…become normal again, but a bomb can probably buy you some days.”</p><p>Emerald frowned, “But how are you going to put the bomb close to her? She’s in her throne room, I don’t think she’ll come down here.” Hazel’s big hand patted her head, basically encompassing the green-haired girl’s skull gently. He smiled at her.</p><p>Just then, Salem’s smooth voice rang in the air.</p><p>“Hazel, I want you to come up to the deck with dear Ozpin. He needs to see how low Atlas has fallen; share the view I’ve orchestrated.” She sounded content, her malignant voice echoed in the halls of the whale, shaking everyone who heard her to their core.</p><p>Hazel turned back to the three Huntsmen once that silence overtook once again and pushed Emerald lightly to them.</p><p>“I will take care of the bomb myself. But only if you take her with you.” Though Emerald had never befriended Hazel over the months she worked under Cinder, she felt his warm hand on her shoulder as a comfort. Yang and Jaune glared at the thief, scowling in silent judgement.</p><p>“Yeah… not sure I can follow.” Yang drawled out; her arms crossed.</p><p>Nervous at being basically offered to her enemies, Emerald began bartering for her life.</p><p>“I know where the ports are! I can tell you where her next moves could be, who she is employing for that…and” Emerald squared her shoulders, feeling bile and dread for what she was making herself say. “I can be a good asset to you. I…never got what I was promised, and now I know, never will.” She sighed, clutching the lamp closer to her heart. “I really just wanna live.” She had nothing but her life to lose, so Emerald pleaded to them with her eyes.</p><p>Yang and Jaune shared a look, then turned to Ren, who sighed and focused his semblance to inspect Emerald.</p><p>In her case, Ren noted, that Emerald had a fast-paced shower of extreme fear. The green petals were voluminous, thick, and heavy, and fell uncontrollably fast around her, swaddling her in such terror that Ren wondered how she was still standing. Next, surprisingly, he noticed some shadowed green orbiting in a loose loop located by her neck-shame and guilt.  The last thing he observed was the gray nucleus that nestled in her heart, it looked deeply entrenched and palpitated on sight to the beat of her own heart. He felt a distant memory upon seeing it: lonely nights in a cold orphanage, with only Nora to give him company, tears that were never swept by a caring hand, and a stomach that rumbled uselessly. Ren felt gratitude for Nora and his team, because without them he would be like…her. A cold bulb of loneliness and neglect, that the bond with his friends and only family were able to snuff out before it festered and turned him into something they’d never recognize.  </p><p>Ren could only pity her as much as he resented her involvement in all of this-after all, Pyrrha would still be there with them, if it wasn’t for Emerald, Mercury and of course Cinder in the Vytal Tournament. Regardless of his feelings, he must do what his heart tells him to, even if he does not particularly want it.</p><p>“I agree with these terms.” Ren nodded at his team leader, who only tsk-ed and looked at Oscar over his shoulder.</p><p>“I’m cool with this. I’m honestly more worried about that thing! When were you guys gonna tell me that we have a weapon of mass destruction and Yang is wearing it like a PURSE!?” Yang rolled her eyes at him, and in a swift motion took the strap from where the silver cube was hanging from over her shoulder and held it in front of Hazel.</p><p>“Some gray-haired idiot told me to detonate this thing in Watts’ lab, there’s got to be flammable shit in there.” Hazel accepted the offer and hung it over his shoulder the same way Yang had. With a heavy, but gentle, last pat on her head, Emerald joined team JOYR in their exodus to their ship. She looked back at Hazel and offered a small wave. He nodded back at her and headed out to Watts’ lab.</p><p>Emerald would later regret that she never offered her friendship to the man who helped her escape. But as she would come to understand later in life, is that you give what you have, and right then, she was empty handed.</p><hr/><p>“I can make the Grimm not see us, to them, the hallway would look empty!” Emerald suggested. Yang side-eyed the thief. They were on their way back to the unused hangar where they landed their ship, and the hallways were strangely devoid of any Grimm whatsoever.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m pretty well acquainted with your semblance. Don’t bother, Ren has it under control.”</p><p>Both girls were walking ahead, with Jaune carrying Oscar behind them, and Ren just about taking the rear, using his semblance to cloak them from the Grimm.</p><p>“Uh… well, we could use the smaller passageways to get there. There’s usually less Grimm over there!”  Yang looked at the wall, the dust bullets she had left on their way to get Oscar still marking the way.</p><p>“Look, Em, I know you are trying, but I don’t buy it yet. We are going my way, the most direct way and we are following these markers I left, yeah? One thought of double-crossing us will get you thrown off the ship, capiche?” Emerald narrowed her eyes at the blonde but dropped the subject. She looked back, and saw Jaune looking at her intently, as if she would disappear at any moment. Oscar gave her a small smile, while Ren stared ahead with an unreadable expression on his face. <em>‘Huh, two out of two don’t want to bite my head off, I guess that’s better’</em></p><p>“Whatever.” Emerald shrugged.</p><p>For her part, Yang was too busy feeling an edge of paranoia to really care about their newest (hopefully temporary) addition. <em>‘This is weird…I haven’t seen one Grimm, at all. Inside the Grimm spewing Monstra? Something’s off here.’</em>, she thought.</p><p>They were getting closer to the hangar when Yang felt it. Something light falling on top of her head. Slowly, so as to not alert her teammates, she reached over her head, and felt around with her flesh hand for something out of order. It felt feathery to the touch, but when she brought back her hand in front of her face to see what it was, she saw ash.</p><p>Slightly disturbed, she looked up to the ceiling, but she did not see any Grimm hanging overhead. Discreetly she looked at Emerald walking beside her, she did not seem like she was using her semblance, and she doubted that the green haired girl would create a hallucination about ashes falling in her hair.</p><p>But Yang looked down and saw a few black feathers near a fork in the hallway. She stopped dead on her tracks, causing Emerald to bump her shoulder with her by mistake.</p><p>Emerald uttered a soft <em>ooph</em> and stared quizzically at Yang, who raised her palm up. Jaune and Ren, seeing this, slowed to a stop behind her. Nobody moved, nor said a word, waiting.</p><p>Yang looked at two passages: to the left continued her trail of fire dust bullets, and to the right it was just a hallway with a couple of doors. It had to be nothing, but she felt a tug.</p><p>She shook her head.  <em>I’m just overthinking, its silly really. </em></p><p>“Never mind guys, lets keep going to the left. Almost there.” Her companions nodded slowly at her, slightly take aback from her sudden stop, but knowing that time was running out, they moved along.</p><p>Just as Yang was entering the left hallway, she saw a familiar red flicker. Sudden realization sank fast in her, and she whirled back to the rest of the team.</p><p>“Guys, follow the bullets embedded in the wall, or follow Emerald. I…need to see something for myself.”</p><p>“Yang?! What the hell? You just said so, we are almost back to the ship, what do you want?” Jaune pressed her.</p><p>Yang activated her gauntlets and looked at her teammates seriously.</p><p>“I have some unfinished business with…Raven.” Ren and Jaune looked stupefied at her, then at each other. Yang looked at the time in her scroll. “We still got fifteen minutes. In less than five you can get back to the hangar where the ship’s waiting. I… just want to see if she is really here.” Ren put his hand on her shoulder.</p><p>“Yang, please, think. Is this really necessary?” Jaune nodded his agreement with Ren.</p><p>“Are you sure that it’s her?”</p><p>“It would be too much a coincidence: the feathers and encountering virtually zero Grimm all this time, guys.” Yang squeezed her teammates shoulders affectionately. “Relax, if she’s here I’m just gonna give her a piece of my mind, and if she isn’t then, nothing to lose, right?” Jaune sighed, gloved hand clasping Yang’s prothesis gently.</p><p>“Just… mind the time we have left. Maybe put an alarm? And be quick, if the alarm on your scroll goes off five minutes before the fireworks go all out, come running back and jump on the ship. We’re gonna be waiting for you.” The blonde nodded, flashed them a toothy grin to assure her friends that she will be alright, and then took off running towards where she thought she saw the red flashes.</p><p>Turning from her retreating back, Jaune looked at Emerald who had been watching the whole exchange with an unreadable expression. He nodded his head at her.</p><p>“After you.”</p><hr/><p>Pools of a viscous tar-like substance surrounded Hazel as he heaved agitated breaths in between punches. Every experiment tank filled with globulous Grimm and animal hybrids had been smashed to pieces, their forms decompensating as soon as the ochre liquid that kept them static was spilt to the floor. Hazel suppressed yet another retch coming from deep inside him as he looked at his knuckles smeared with the disgusting sludge from Watts’ experiments. He turned his attention to the next cylinder containing what looked like a nevermore crossed with a small animal cub. It seemed to be alive, curled up and dormant within the feeding medium it floated within, tendrils of black goo swaying in the liquid. Closing his eyes, Hazel struck his fist once more, and broke the crystal cylinder with his closed fist. The gelatinous creature slipped though the cracks left at the base, and slid slowly down to the floor, where it lost its form and simply pooled about, liquified.</p><p>In the middle of the broken equipment, Hazel stood looking brokenly at the door. He waited a few seconds, emergency alarms loud in his ears. The biohazard alarm kept blaring on, surely Salem would have heard by now that the chemical and biological experimentation labs had breached security controls and measures. He waited with bated breath: impending doom a single digit ready to turn to zero soon, but no sign of Salem.   </p><p>There was the electrical and energy lab left for him to go through, and as he punched a hole in the emergency barrier that fell separating each laboratory, he began to register a slight throb of pain.</p><p>When he first began wrecking the chemistry lab, he had swinged at a distilling set which had been titrating a compound made from Tyrian’s and various venomous Grimm, mixed with radioactive isotopes of heavy metals. It had to be an extremely strong concoction because it burnt his skin upon brief contact. Hazel realized belatedly that it had been the first of many things that had elicited any type of sensory discomfort as of late. If his aura was still intact, then how could something cause such a reaction?</p><p>Shaking his head to rid himself of fruitless thoughts, he pressed on.</p><p>The next laboratory was bathed in intermittent red and yellow lighting just like the two other rooms he had left in ruins. A boiler room of sorts, it contained the control panels that regulated the dust crystals uptake each generator used. Looking at the buttons and knobs littering the metallic interface, he noticed that they were set in a very low dust uptake setting, basically on the bottom. He positioned both hands on top of the sliding knobs and with a swift motion brought them to their highest uptake setting. Soon, the generators began to process gravity dust in heavy quantities, catalyzing energy into heat. He waited there, letting the heat collect in his temple as the room temperature raised with each overwhelmed generator. He looked down at the timer and growled in frustration as less than three minutes remained on the clock and still no sign of Salem. He raised his fists to drown out his disappointment when he heard a slight rattle behind him. Slowly, he turned to the doorway.</p><p>Salem had a carefully restrained expression, her eyes looked relaxed and passive, and she sported a calm smile as she leaned on the doorway. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest and her fingers were periodically tapping her forearms. Nevertheless, she still looked dangerous under all that easygoing façade.</p><p>“What. Do. You. Think. You. Are. Doing.” She accentuated every word slowly, as if she were savoring them. Hazel looked at her, a certain numbness settling in his eyes.</p><p>“What does it look like?” The witch narrowed her eyes at him as she shifted her weight from the doorframe and began to pace across the room.</p><p>“I kindly ask you to bring Ozpin to me. I wait. And wait.  You can imagine how curious I became when you did not answer my call. Did you know, oh! How much I hate waiting?” Now choosing to inspect the control panel, she moves the dials up and down, playing with them. “You make me come down here, look for you in your quarters and you are not there. Fine, you must still be working the kicks and punches to make Ozpin talk. I go to the dungeons, only to find no one, and then I hear you’ve destroyed poor Arthur’s playground? What does this look to you, then?” Salem finishes her fiddling and moves to stand in front of Hazel, her hands clasped delicately and she puts on a gentle expression.</p><p>“Gretchen once read me this book. About two men who wish for a life full of charm, but ultimately, they are unable to fulfill their empty dreams. It seemed like they would have, but the fact is that there is no dream, because there is no way to actually achieve it.” The more he spoke, the more he realized the weight of the silver block strapped to his side, and the more he felt like a dam was finally cleared out inside of his heart. Gaining momentum, he continued. “Like when you said no more huntsmen academies. You really meant to say, no huntsmen academies, no more humans or faunus, a world where you cease to be.”</p><p>Salem chuckled darkly at him for a moment, pretending to wipe a nonexistent tear out of the corner of her eye.</p><p>“You saw all this get up, all this destruction, and it never crossed your tiny, puny mind that this was my goal? All this time, you saw me control hordes of Grimm, and it never dawned on you that your stupid idiot sister died because I wanted to?” At Hazel’s sharp intake of breath, she sneers delighted. “Did you think I surveyed all chatter pertaining to Ozpin just for entertainment? Because I am oh-so-old, and bored? All I saw was a possessive child throwing a damned tantrum at dear old Oz’ door. Oh, Hazel.  It only took a moment, and you were banging on all of Beacon’s doors, day and night.”</p><p>He did not answer right away, his jaw worked to find the right words, but he could not decide. The cacophony of siren alarms, paired with the dangerous lights that shined at intervals infuriated Hazel, confused him when he wanted to know what to choose from the thoughts whirling in his mind.</p><p> Salem walked to him and with a gentleness that hurt, traced the side of his face until they found purchase in his neck. She clawed her fingers into his skin and muscle, drawing blood, but Hazel did not move.</p><p>“Bringing you into my operation was easy, I waited for a few seasons while you festered in isolation, while the overall huntsman society deemed you a threat to their lifestyle. From there it was truly so easy, but if you want, I can reunite you directly with your dumb little sister.” Hazel’s hand gripped the witch’s wrist to conceal a quick peak to his side. He smiled ruefully at her. </p><p>“I would want nothing more, but first let me tell you about the lesson Gretchen taught me with her book.” He gasped as his windpipe continued to be tortured by Salem’s claws, but still went on. “She said that at the end <em>‘the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’. </em>You could be whatever you want to, a human, and I could be a stupid rat for all I care. But still life finds a way to muddle up the formula. And your mistake, I think, was to let me hack you to pieces.”</p><p>“What in the blazes-“she began to ask, but was interrupted by a fast beeping coming from his side. She deigned to look down, but before she could summon her magic, she saw red. Then she faded to a familiar numbness that tricked her into a fake contentment that would never last the eternity she wanted.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Surprise surprise! There shall be a third and final chapter! It is already in the works and might be posted this week.<br/>I did not want to post a monster of a chapter like 10+k.<br/>Full disclosure, english is not my first language so if you see wonkiness, let me know so I can improve.<br/>Once again, let me know what you think in the comments.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Part III</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Final chapter!<br/>I am happy and thankful you have all stuck around for the finale of this story.<br/>See you on the other side.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Under pressure, humble carbon particles will heat up and expand, creating diamonds. In the case of emeralds, they are created when hydrothermal fluids escape from magma spilled out of the crust of Remnant. That is to say, the precious beryl found within the dangerous magma needs to escape from the crust and then cool down, to hopefully be found by humans so they can polish them into the pristine jewels known for their rarity. This same can be applied to humans, whereas some pressure might crack an egg, it could also create durability and reliability in different forms of matter.</p><p>But right in this instance, Emerald Sustrai, thief and wanted criminal, did not give a shit if the daggers Jaune Arc was glaring at her back would count as some sort of pressure. She had been under pressure all her life, thrown around a back alley by the eldest ‘cousins’ that taught her how to pickpocket, but she was nowhere near the precious jewel that her name referred to. But still, she felt a tremendous amount of it while guiding the huntsmen back to the hangar they used to get inside the Monstra. She felt the same nagging chant inside her head when she tagged along with Cinder on missions- <em>don’t fuck it up</em>. Back then she had the reassurance of Cinder’s grace, something that began dwindling once they became too entrenched in Salem’s plans, which had also been directed more at Neopolitan as of late.</p><p>While she knew that Ren and Oscar seemed to be on some varying degrees of acceptance with her presence (although the boy was nearly unconscious and quite spaced out), she would also bet a pretty penny that given the right combination of errors from her part, the blondes in the team would absolutely rip her to pieces. Or at least let her drop from thousands of feet on the air, to splatter uselessly on Atlas, or Mantle if they choose so. In Emerald’s calculations, the only viable path to her survival would be to guide these Beacon preps to their ship, and possibly align herself to them. Or something like that. Which is why she is currently walking with Beacon Academy hunstmen to the least used hangar within the Monstra in complete awkward silence and mindful of any incoming Grimm.</p><p>In non-companionable silence the group walked until they reached the entrance to the rear end hangar. In all due honesty, nobody ever used this exact dock because it smelled terribly of methane and it was an inconvenient place to be in. Emerald slowed to a stop in front of the open entryway, and with a raised hand, she warned the others to not move. She leaned in to chance a peak then turned to the boys behind her.</p><p>“Are you sure you docked here?”</p><p>“Pretty sure I recognize this layout.” The blonde boy told her haughtily. Emerald hummed unconvinced and peeked back in.</p><p>“With an Atlas manta ship, right?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Well. You might wanna come to see this then.”</p><p>Jaune rolled his eyes at her and leaned into the entrance, looking at the place where they had landed their ship. For a while he did nothing except stare at it, then looked at the timer ticking off seconds in his scroll before leaning back in his heels. He took a calming breath.</p><p>“Ren?” the boy only hummed in response. “There is a horde of Grimm surrounding our ship.”</p><p>“Well, fuck.” The three fell back to their hiding spot behind the wall, Ren doing his job of cloaking them all from the Grimm, but no possible plan of attack with Oscar being hurt, Emerald and Jaune able to fight (but certainly not all of the Grimm) and him keeping Tranquility up.</p><p>A stretch of uneasy silence ensued before Oscar piped up from Jaune’s back.</p><p>“What if we make them go after something else?” Jaune nodded his agreement, and looked pointedly at Emerald, who eyed him up and down with narrowed eyes. Ren sighed exasperatedly at his team leader.</p><p>“I think that Oscar means that she can use her semblance to lure them away, Jaune, not to use her as bait.” Emerald rolled her eyes at the blond and peeked back at the situation in front of her. Focusing on the Grimm, she imagined the two hunstmen behind her to be by the Grimm, amplifying the hallucination to the entire horde-a folie a deux of sorts.</p><p>One of the Beringel noticed the illusion, and with a growl and beating of its chest, warned its comrades. The next thing that ensued, as from our heroes perspective was the horde seemingly attacking, and being struck by nothingness. They moved like they recoiled from hits that never were, and dodged incoming assault from the huntsmen in their mass hallucination. Making them fight for it, Emerald gripped the wall as she felt her semblance waning in power but used her strength to make them fall in hot pursuit of something that rushed them out of the hangar using the southern gate. The thief slid down to the wall as the last Grimm disappeared, and let out a shaky breath. She opened her wine-red eyes and noticed the two boys staring at her.</p><p>“Making more than one person hallucinate is not as easy as it sounds.” She huffed in annoyance, resting her forehead on her knees.</p><p>“I don’t know what you made them see, but that helped.” Ren offered his hand to her, and it struck Emerald silly, how such an act could come from people like them. It caused her immense guilt, the one she was unused to, not the one pushed to her unwittingly, but the one that came from the knowledge that her choices created destruction and pain. The one she did not know was actually called shame.</p><p>She rejected the hand outstretched to her and stood up swiftly as she dusted her clothes, a nervous habit she used to distance herself. Ren only shrugged, half expecting her refusal.</p><p>“That will keep them busy for a while, let’s go before they come back with more.” Jaune took the lead once more, jumping a little to readjust Oscar’s weight on his back. “How are we holding up Oscar?”</p><p>The boy in question silently offered a thumbs up to Jaune, not lifting his forehead from its snug place embedded in the blond’s shoulder. Jaune smiled in pain at the state of the farmhand on his back so he decided to double up his aura amplification to help Oscar recover somewhat.</p><p>When they finally made it to their ship, or rather, what was left of it, neither of the two boys held back from cursing their luck up and down. The ship they loaned from the Atlesian soldier was caved in and sparkling in random short circuits. One look across the room would find one of the engines laying on its side, wrenched out of its hinges. It seemed like the Beringel horde went on a rampage, swinging their fists down the fighter jet enthusiastically until it was just some piece scrap metal. Emerald felt her blood sugar tank and swayed on her spot as she revisited all the events that landed her standing inside a huge Grimm about to explode in ten minutes.</p><p>On the other hand, Jaune had never seen Ren pace and curse so much before in his life. The black-haired huntsman was grasping his own hair, pulling at the roots, as he freaked out. He thought about Nora back there, probably being hunted down by Ironwood or overwhelmed by the Grimm. About the rest of the Ace Ops, searching for Penny when she has been with Nora and the other girls all this time. He regretted not reminding her how much he cared, but he lamented never being able to <em>see her</em> through his new vision. He thought about her beautiful feelings surrounding her, them, and not being able to experience that himself.  </p><p>Jaune swallowed a thick lump that had formed in his mouth, wondering what he was going to say to Yang when she came back-if she came back at all. They had Oscar with them, how would the rest of team RWBY and Nora know what happened to them. Oscar wasn’t even old enough to have been enrolled in a hunstmen academy! He felt Oscar grasp tightly the fabric of his shirt; for the first time since they picked him up, he looked panicked, eyes flashing in gold back and forth, a silent argument in his head.</p><p>Their combined negative energy was enough to call back the horde of Grimm into the hangar, but a sharp whistle cut through the air, stopping the group in their tracks. They looked at the access point from where they came in initially and saw an Atlas cargo ship with its door wide open, hovering right in front of them. Standing there with one leg inside the ship, and the other hanging in the air, unsure if he should come in, was Marrow. He waved at them confused but then took notice of the destroyed airship in the hangar.</p><p>“C’mon guys! There’s not much time left!” Running fast, they jumped back into action, basically throwing themselves into the ship. In the process, they almost knocked Marrow down, but he held on tight, surprised by the quick reaction.</p><p>Inside the ship, Jaune laid Oscar on the cold metal with the help of Ren. His chest was rising and falling shallow and painfully, the front of his shirt was charred in the center, but the area around the scorch marks were saturated in blood. Marrow looked at the boy on the floor, his head was resting sideways, but he could see bruises and raised skin running from his temple down to his collar. The bandages that usually wrapped around his neck had been ripped open, and the distinct imprint of claw marks marred the skin, but those did not look new. Just then, he looked at the blond team leader, and gasped.</p><p>“Jaune! Your back, it’s-it has blood!” Jaune struggled to see the back of its armor but judging by Ren’s grim expression it must have been bad. And it was. Oscar’s body had left a red impression on the back of his white cuirass, but it was especially bad in the abdominal area of the imprint.</p><p>Ren knelt down by Oscar, and hastily took what remained of his shirt and tore it open. His ribcage looked uneven, and his belly had a distended appearance as blood trickled from his right side. The skin in the middle of his chest looked raw, burnt, and in an almost perfect radius.</p><p> Marrow widened his eyes at the sight of Oscar’s abdomen and looked back at Winter to ask for a medical kit, but she had already fished one from under the pilot’s seat. She looked unaffected by the boy bleeding out on the floor, but her right hand shook as she held out the kit to Marrow.</p><p>“Just take it and check his injuries.” Her voice wavered just a fraction, before she assumed her cold tone again. The dark-haired Ace Operative nodded and rushed to Oscar’s other side. Opening the medical kit, he used the stethoscope to hear his breathing, and surmised that a rib must have broken into the left lung, as he heard the breathing wet and haggard. A grimace on his face, he turned to his abdomen, and gently felt its pressure. Oscar who had been barely responsive to his examinations with the stethoscope, gasped in pain, his voice cracking as he whimpered, and his opalescent eyes widened in shock.  His belly was rock hard in some places, and in others it gave way too easily: the signs of internal bleeding. Marrow looked in alarm at Oscar’s teammates.</p><p>“He needs medical attention quickly, punctured lung and internal bleeding.” Jaune carded his fingers in his hair and nodded nervously. Marrow turned back to Winter for questioning. “Ma’am, we need to take him a hospital, he won’t make it if- “</p><p>“No!” Oscar yelled, gasping in pain as he tried to sit up. Ren held his shoulders in support and tried to lay him back on the floor. “I can’t go to any place with Ironwood’s soldiers. I just can’t!” he struggled weakly against Ren’s hold. Jaune was about to refute the boy when Winter beat him to it.</p><p>“He is right. We can’t take him anywhere that’s related to our forces.” She punched coordinates to the navigation system. Marrow stood up violently and grabbed Winter’s chair and whirled her about. She eyed him coolly, expecting this behavior from him.</p><p>“Ma’am! With all due respect, Sir-Ma’am! This boy won’t last if we don’t take him to surgery!”</p><p>“As I am well aware. But I am also aware that the General…” she looked down, conflicted. “There’s a reason he is not listed in the capture notice we sent out. I know that the General spoke to him, but I also know that he is not the most receptive right now. Remember Councilman Sleet? He is not going to be safe in any of our facilities. Besides, General Ironwood did not expect him to be in the picture anymore. That is what struck me as weird when you mentioned you had lost him to a Beowolf.”</p><p>Ren looked down to Oscar, a horrified expression on his face.</p><p>“Oscar, what happened?” The brown-haired boy looked at the side and closed his eyes.</p><p>“I really wanted to trust him; I really did. But he shot me. And I fell down…from the vault in Atlas Academy, down to Mantle. Then I met up with you guys.” Jaune clenched his fists around the fabric of his pants.  Ren bit his lip and punched the metal floor with his fist in anger towards himself for feeling disappointed by Ironwood’s actions.</p><p>“Fucking bastard!” Jaune punched the wall near to him, then glared at the Specialist. “And you!” He whispered angrily, then pointed at Winter with an accusing finger. “You! You kept following orders even after, what, he shot someone else? You follow a trigger-happy dictator? Is that what you are doing now?” Jaune stood up and stalked towards her. Winter looked at him, her face passive but her eyes burning a hole in his chest.</p><p>“Where is Yang? And who is this?” she deflected coldly, avoiding the barrage of feelings inside of her. It seemed to deescalate Jaune somewhat, who put some distance between himself and the Specialist in front of him. He looked at the timer on his scroll, then uttered a low <em>shit!</em> when he saw how long they had left.</p><p>“She, uh, strayed from us. But she’s supposed to come back. In a minute she must be close enough to pick up.” Winter checked the aura readings from inside the Grimm.</p><p>“I can see her aura readings, but they are faint. Either she’s taken hits or she’s in too deep. Now, who is this?”</p><p>Emerald swallowed thickly at being noticed, her hand coming to rest on the lamp hanging from her belt. Up until now, she had shrunk at the back of the cargo ship, hoping to make herself smaller and that Oscar’s condition would conceal her presence, but it seems like she failed. Mutely, she swept her gaze around the compartment, taking everyone there in, until she finally stopped at Ren. They held gazes for what seemed an eternity, hers was panicked, while his was steeling by the minute. He snapped his gaze to Winter before addressing the Specialist.</p><p>“She has decided to switch allegiances. Her partner, Hazel, stayed behind with the bomb in exchange that we take her with us.” Ren explained, maintaining eye contact with Winter, his pink gaze steely and unwavering, something that Winter secretly respected. She crossed her arms in front of her chest.</p><p>“You left the bomb with one of Salem’s associates? That’s now out of our hands, it will detonate either way. Now, what’s stopping me from arresting <em>her</em> for her crimes?” Ren worked his jaw, unable to think fast enough of a response.</p><p>“She might serve as good intel, she knows where Salem might go next, she was in the inner circle as well.” Jaune piped up, picking up from Ren. Winter looked at her expectantly, a hand on the pommel of Brunhilde ready to attack if necessary.</p><p>“So what?”</p><p>“Well… she doesn’t know that I left. For all we know, after the explosion… she might even think I died in it. I… was never too much on the spotlight for her to notice me much.” Emerald defended herself, her eyes straying towards Oscar’s mangled body. “I could be… a good asset, if she doesn’t know I left I could try to delay Mercury in Vacuo. Agent of surprise?” She said rigidly, her heart was pummeling in her chest.</p><p>“I will deal with you later. Now,” Winter turned to Jaune and Ren, “we have five minutes before time zero.” She looks quickly at the holoscreen with everyone’s status. “Yang’s still not out, and I really do hate to be saying this, but we need to take up good distance from the bomb. We don’t know how it will react with everything inside the whale. If we don’t leave quickly, we become collateral. Am I making myself clear?” Ren hung his head, tears forming in his eyes. Marrow made his way to the co-pilot’s seat sluggishly, his heart thumping in his ears. </p><p>Jaune pressed his fingers to his stinging eyes.</p><p>“We can’t leave her there! We need- “</p><p>“Either we stay here and die, or you live, and your teams don’t lose too many members.” Winter turned her seat back to the navigation system. “Do you really think I am okay with leaving Weiss’ teammate here to die? But we have Ozpin, the lamp, and you two-three. There is a kid my brother’s age bleeding out in my ship, about to die, and you think you can give me orders? No.”</p><p>Oscar’s rattling gasps as he cried swarmed the otherwise silent ship. Winter took hold of the manual commands of the ship and killed the communication system. The ship left the general vicinity of the whale, as Ren held Oscar’s hand trying to calm down the desolate fifteen-year-old who thrashed about. Jaune blinked back tears as he thought about his friend left alone in the whale, trying to keep a steady flow of aura entering Oscar’s abdomen.</p><p>It was moments before a muffled thrum registered in their ears, and a wave of turbulence hit the ship, sending its occupants to the side as Winter tried to right the cargo ship.</p><p>Ren let out the mournful sob he had been trying to suppress, bringing a Oscar’s hand to his forehead as he cried kneeling over him. Jaune sobbed silently, for he was not a particularly verbal crier, but was shaking like a leaf uncontrollably. Oscar’s high keen squeezed Marrow’s heartstrings: he looked back discreetly and saw the three boys crying together. He felt deep guilt, and sadness. He thought about his own team members, and a wave of envy washed over him. He tried to suppress it in shame, but it was there, the knowledge that even if Yang had perished, she was deeply loved and cherished by her friends, who treated each other as family.</p><p>Marrow looked at Emerald, who watched all this with wide and perturbed eyes. She was not even blinking, seemingly still processing what was happening in front of her, but then she lifted her eyes to his. In her eyes he recognized the same othering feeling, and shame that he felt. In her eyes he recognized another who knew that nobody would miss them. Marrow forced himself to tear his eyes from her, and looked at Winter, who had a sullen frown on her face. He looked at the navigation course and did not immediately recognize it.</p><p>“Ma’am… are we not going to take Oscar to medical?” he dared to ask. Winter side eyed him, her blue eyes sad, looking back ahead to hide the pity that tried to make itself present.</p><p>“I can’t bring him to a hospital, we would only endanger him. The only place I can think of taking him is the place that the General would never think of finding me.”</p><p>Marrow remembered bits and pieces of gossip behind locker rooms in Atlas Academy, whispers about Specialist Schnee’s unusual liaison with a certain alumnus. He drummed his fingers on his armrest.</p><p>“…The Happy Huntresses’ headquarters?” for a split second, Winter’s face flashed a surprised expression, but she covered it up with an annoyed scowl.</p><p>“No, <em>Marrow.</em>” She answered as if she was saying <em>No, you idiot. </em>“My family’s manor.” She said with a roll of her eyes.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>At every twist and turn she took, Yang kept finding those damned black feathers. It did not occur to her at the moment that it was weird that the woman who gave her up the moment Taiyang fell asleep the day she was born would leave a trail.  She spent all her life making herself a living enigma to her daughter, only to leave the dumbest, poor excuse of a joke trace of <em>feathers that turned to nothingness </em>in the weirdest of places: a huge whale Grimm equipped with a ticking time bomb.</p><p>For better or for worse, Yang had deluded herself for most of her life that the mystery of her mother was hers to decipher. After Summer Rose died, she began the obtuse fantasy in her head that her destiny was to right all the wrongs in her family, that she was not Raven, and that she was Ruby’s guardian and that she had to embody what Ruby could not remember from their mom. It took one day for it all to crash and burn in one fell swoop. But if there is one thing that defines humanity is their inability to objectively know when their shovel has begun to crack from hitting stone instead of soil in the hole they’ve dug for themselves. For some people, logic tells them that the time spent digging up their holes has been too long, and thus use their remaining strength to pull themselves towards the light, or to ask for some rope, or help. But there is people like Yang, who can’t believe until the hard truth has shaken them to their core before they decide to leave the gaping hole they’ve made for nothing.</p><p>Alas, she was in her proverbial pit of doom, and was stuck playing a treasure hunt with her absentee mother.</p><p>After the third or so feather that turned to a fine gray powder, she learned that kneeling on the floor and molding her fingers as softly as she could, would not stop the black down from slipping through her fingers. Instead, she pressed on, quickly and ready to spring into action, until she reached a dead end.</p><p>Resisting the urge to punch the wall (a quite terrible idea considering it was a live Grimm and it would probably register her strong hook) she opted to clench her fists letting her flesh hand feel the crescents her nails left in her palm.  Just as she was about to turn tail from whence she came, a deliberately loud flutter made itself present. Yang rolled her eyes at Raven’s theatrics, and turned, her prosthetic placed on her jutted hips.</p><p>Raven had this unnervingly similar half smirk that Yang used all the time, but it was cruel and sardonic whereas Yang’s was teasing and fun-loving. It rubbed Yang the wrong way when instead of that awful smirk she expected, a seemingly genuine small smile greeted her.</p><p>The black-haired woman was leaning against the wall, a pocket-knife doing loops along her fingers as if she were a sword master in a vaudeville, her red gaze cutting through a simmering lilac.</p><p>“I see you noticed my little details for you.” Raven’s smooth voice carried an edge of perceived moral superiority, a tone that made Yang roll her eyes in annoyance.</p><p>“What do you want, Raven? Seriously did not expect you to haul ass all over here, especially under Salem’s nose. So, you must be after something.” Yang walked towards the bandit, sizing her up. Raven only shrugged; her palms raised in front of her daughter.</p><p>“Oh, can’t I just be looking out for your own good? After all, we are family, and you’ve become quite strong. I think you can earn your place back with us.” Yang scoffed and glared at the Spring Maiden.</p><p>“Raven, I think you’ve showed me and everyone you knew back then that you don’t have a single maternal bone in your body.”</p><p>Raven just let out a sarcastic chortle at Yang’s expense.</p><p>“I never needed a maternal figure, only someone who would push me to become stronger. And look at me!” the dark-haired woman smirked wolfishly at the blonde. “I have been observing you. You clearly take after me more than you think.”</p><p>Yang’s eyes flashed red in anger; the tips of her golden hair suddenly alight.</p><p>“Stop saying that! I am nothing like you!”</p><p>“Oh, but you do. Thought I didn’t see you kill that faunus guy? Ha! The look on his face when your kitty girlfriend and you stabbed him? Would love to see it twice.” Raven’s smile was back to cruel, plastering itself in her face as she felt winning this argument.</p><p>“Don’t!” She growled, her eyes burning. “Don’t ever talk about Blake, or any of my teammates, ever again. I am warning you.” Yang was beginning to get furious by now.</p><p>“She is also very strong; wouldn’t you want to just… leave? Take her with you, protect her from this world…we will welcome you in. Don’t you want her to be safe as well?”</p><p>“Don’t even. I am not walking out on anyone, not my team, or JNPR, or Remnant.  I am not a coward like you.”</p><p>The black-haired woman scoffed, and she walked towards Yang with intent. Yang did not back down though and met her in the middle. Raven looked her up and down, critically, as she began walking around Yang. The blonde did not let her do that to her, instead she also chose to mirror the Spring Maiden, leering at each other.</p><p>“I do the best in my abilities to protect my people, our people if you so choose. It is your birthright.”</p><p>“And I do the same for mine. But you and I gravitate towards <em>very</em> different kinds of people.”</p><p>Raven stopped her rounding about and drummed her fingers on her forearms.</p><p>“Fine, you play hard to get. Whatever. Your little…troupe of misfits can come with you. Everyone, your girlfriend, tiny Rose, the rich brat, the other three nitwits, even kid Oz. All of them.”</p><p>Yang stopped dead on her tracks, offended by the mere mention of her sister as an accessory to gain her loyalty. She was about to retort when she noticed something. The blonde looked at Raven, her eyes narrowed in growing distrust.</p><p>While the mention of her team set a few red flags, the fact that she singled out Oscar from the rest of JNPR… raised an even bigger one.</p><p>“You…know about Oscar.”</p><p>“What of it?”</p><p>“You offhandedly show me that you know my friends… but you stick with calling him Oz.”</p><p>“Well… isn’t he hurt? Do you think that James would loan any of you medical aid? Don’t be ridiculous. We can save his life; I have been hurt much more worse than that.”</p><p>“No. See. He might have two souls, or whatever, but <em>he is still Oscar. </em>And he is my friend. And you don’t give a crap about kids. I know firsthand that the idea of kids makes you tuck tail and turn, like the coward, heartless bitch you are.” Yang took a calming breath, unclenching her fists. “But you know he has…untapped power of some degree. And the only reason you stole the Maiden power, was to protect yourself from Salem, but guess what. You painted a bigger target on your back. Look at you: a walking curse.”</p><p>Raven’s red eyes glimmered with the mark of the Spring Maiden, angry and powerful, but ultimately distant.</p><p>“You have no idea what you are talking about! I am strong enough to deserve this power, I fought my way in and won. Of course, you have no idea… you’ve been coddled all your life as if you were going to break.”</p><p>“Oh, shut up. You know what, I can’t even be mad at you. This is just how you are. I should have expected you to come back looking for more power that does not belong to you. But this is low, even for a runaway like you.” Yang let out a self-deprecating laugh. “If anything, I am mad at myself. Can’t believe I thought you’d come for me. What a fucking joke.” Red eyes aflame lock with cool lilac, the two of them maintaining their glares unwilling to relent.</p><p>Just then, a beeping sound coming from Yang’s scroll breaks her attention. Raven walks past her daughter to stand in front of the end of the hallway. The black-haired woman takes her sword, and slashes at the wall, creating a red ripple that extended to the entire wall.</p><p>“Guess visit time’s over.” Raven looked over her shoulder, dead stare, and no discernible expression on her face. “I will leave this open, in case you decide to think and act, instead of wimp around talking about the power of friendship, and all that stupid bullshit Summer drilled into you head.”</p><p>“Thanks but no thanks, deadbeat mom. I got a ship waiting for me just around the vend.”</p><p>This time Raven smirked cruelly.</p><p>“Are you sure about that?” Without waiting for a reply, she entered the portal.</p><p>For a few seconds Yang stared at the spot where Raven had walked into the rift. With a sinking feeling, she realized her mistake.</p><p>She ran all the way back to the hangar in a panic. In her head, a single chain of useless prayer to deaf gods, who damned the entire of the world and left, asking for the littlest miracle. <em>I hope my friends are still waiting for me. I hope we can leave all this behind. I hope I don’t get caught. </em></p><p>But when she saw the useless scrap of metal, the sparking engine, and no sign of her friends, she remembered that Remnant was a land of no gods, hijacked with a maniac witch that had delusions of being their goddess of death.</p><p>She screamed in frustration, grabbing her hair by the handfuls, and pulled slightly. There was no way to leave this place, nobody to yell at but only at herself for being a fool, afraid of abandonment and looking for love where there was none. Looking down at her scroll, she swiped around until Jaune and Ren’s aura levels were displayed on the screen, ignored them, and swiped until the timer was displayed. With a growl, she smashed the thing letting the crushed pieces of technology slip through her fingers, the blinking red letters counting down from 4:30 minutes burned in her retinas.</p><p>She ran to the broken carcass of the manta ship, and kicked it with her steel toed boots a few times, the rings of clanking metal echoing in the chambered hangar she was in. In her mind, the only two options were that Emerald had double crossed them, or that they left her there to fry to a crisp. The second one resonated more in her heart.</p><p>About to lug another kick at the broken-down Atlas ship, she heard a trilling noise behind her. She turned slowly, carefully engaging Ember Celica’s firing mechanism. She readied her fists as she spotted to medium sized Tyrexes looking at her from the threshold of a hallway, their heads tilted at an angle as they let out clicking noises out of their snaping jaws. Noticing her attention on them, they snapped up and lunged at her, salivating muzzles eager to cleave fresh meat.</p><p>Yang jumped into action quickly, dodging the fastest one by jumping on its head, thus dazing it, and then landing behind the second lagging one. With all her might, she grabbed the second Tyrex by the tail and used its body to sweep under the feet of the first one, sending it sprawling to the shortcircuiting ship, where it received some electrical discharges, stunning the beast into inaction. Yang turned her attention to the other Tyrex, who she had let go of its tail, and saw it shaking its head and rearing down to meet her heads on. She ran at it full speed, and then crouched under it as it went to grab her with its jaws. Passing under it, she punched her bullets in its belly and as she was slipping below its tail, she activated the dust bullets, knocking it out in a cloud of black smoke. The growl of the remaining Tyrex called her attention just as she was standing up again to spring back into action. The dinosaur type of Grimm dug with its back legs like a bull preparing to charge at something and vaulted towards her. She readied her fist to meet its muzzle, when she felt a slight tremor.</p><p>The Tyrex stood still in its place, its hind legs clawing at the ground to stop its momentum, its head turning in all directions, and for all it was a creature of Grimm, it seemed rightfully scared. It trilled shrilly and ran the opposite way into the nearest hallway. In confusion she narrowed her eyes to see it turn at the corner, then an echo of its high-pitched screech as a wall of fire came out the same hallway it disappeared into.</p><p>It was a fraction of a second that took for Yang to realize that the bomb had gone off, and another for her to remember she lined the hallways with fire dust pellets.</p><p>Her brain blanked for a moment as she saw the ball of fire lapping at the walls, she had ran a few minutes ago, closer to her than ever. When it had reached the threshold of the hanger, she turned tail and ran, her first instinct.</p><p>Then it all happened so fast, to even describe in words. But it was a chain of thoughts and events that came before Yang’s field of vision turned to red.</p><p>The first reaction had been to run, but then her first thought was about her sister. <em>What will I tell her. </em>Then the reality sunk in. <em>I won’t see my baby sister ever again. Or Blake, or Weiss. </em></p><p>She felt the unbearable heat reach her back, and in the fraction of a moment, she thought ‘<em>Now Blake won’t know how much I care and love her. Or how I loved her cut’ </em>before the sting of the fire even registered. But she kept moving her legs.</p><p>Next, she thought about Weiss, who had just begun to let go of the burnt of her upbringing, and was laughing and joking more, and how she will miss her new witty quips. But the fire had reached her hair, and she felt it churn away. But she kept running like the devil licked at her heels.</p><p>A strange feeling of bursting and melting and exploding at the same time radiated from her core, her heart. And she felt an anger that drove her mad, in the fraction of a second that she ran. Livid rage ate at her, the events that had led to this very moment resenting them to their atom.</p><p>She thought about many things, but the stronger being:</p><p>
  <em>I am not a coward. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I love my family and friends.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I am not leaving Ruby to fend for herself.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Neither Blake nor Weiss. </em>
</p><p>She blinked, her eyes afire red, and saw the golden light of the dawn thought the collapsing opening where they had first come in. It spurred her, in envy, in mad hysteria, in all consuming love, and pride, to the point she felt like a candle being burnt at both ends.</p><p>
  <em>I am a fighter.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And I burn.</em>
</p><p>She was aflame, her arms and legs moving like torches in a blazing sky, her breath bursting and sparkling. But it hurt so much, she was alight in pain and every cell in her skin stabbed her like needles that scorched. And yet.</p><p> She was an extraordinary woman on fire, her feet hitting the ground as it disintegrated under her, walking in the trail of dead core of stars, almost in the empty air. Like a living pyre, she touched the edge of the Grimm, into the sun, surrounded by a stele of hungry fire, and lingered if only for a fragment of light, before falling from grace.</p><p>
  <em>I want to go home.</em>
</p><p>She hesitated, catching herself on the ledge. <em>Where?</em></p><p>The voice of her mother answered, from a distant memory of a story telling night. To click her heels and wish fervently.</p><p><em>‘Home is where the heart is.’</em> Was the quote. She thought of cookies, of hot chocolate and merry laughing, of singing around a fire, and shoving each other as they all laughed silly. It made up her mind.</p><p>And in a moment of joy and fury she threw herself out the crumbling gate, flames licking at every expanse of her body, and down she fell, burning blindingly like molten gold.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>INTERLUDE: Inside the Fire</p><p>It is said that at the end of a person’s life, all their choices are laid bare for them to see. If their life had been filled with sweetness, they would feel comfort. If their life had been a dark one, they would feel a churning like the sea.</p><p>In Hazel’s case, all he saw before blinking out of existence was his exchange with Jinn, the guardian spirit of the Relic of Knowledge.</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>Hazel snuck by the various Seers surveilling the hallways, his steps impossibly light for his stature. Unconsciously, he regulated his own breathing to a shallow thrum instead of the throaty gasps of air he commonly breathed in. Looking down the hallway, was the Treasure Room, Salem’s favored place to put her war trophies in display. He had seen it once or twice, for Salem very much liked to show off the cruel artifacts that made up her collection. Mostly, preserved human remains of foes she hated the most. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Taking a calming breath to reign in his thoughts away from such morbidity, he pressed on. He did not need any special permission to enter the room, after all, some of the pieces fixed on the walls had fallen by his hand. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>The swishing of the door created a much-needed gust of wind, as he was sweating and terrified of being found out. Keeping his eyes on the floor, he avoided the hands, skins and heads of humans, faunus, animals and Grimm alike lining the walls, looking down on him with their beady eyes, as if to shame him. He especially avoided the areas he knew he’d find his kills, and thus moved swiftly to the back of the room. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>In the atrium of the room, there were four pedestals positioned after the four directions and the Relics they each represented: North, Winter, empty, but soon to be filled. South, Summer, empty. West, Fall, empty (infuriatingly so). East, Spring, with a beam of light shining on the Relic of Knowledge. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Gingerly, he grabbed the golden handle of the lamp and inspected it closely. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>In the polished azure crystal encased in golden framework, he saw his own face. His eyes were sunken and tired, his lips chapped from biting at them all the time, and his expression was desolate. He did not like what he saw, so outstretching his arm out, not daring to look further than he had to, uttered the name he was entrusted with. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Jinn.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Suddenly, the world around him dulled into grey, until all he saw was a smoky expanse that seemed endless. He looked down and horrified noticed that the ground was no longer beneath him. He panicked, almost dropping the lamp. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’d be more careful if I were you.” Said a smooth voice behind him. He turned and fell to his haunches when he saw a giant woman, with golden chains covering her body, floating right there. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Wha-what-!?” He spluttered, but the woman shushed him immediately. She looked down on him and narrowed her eyes.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I am Jinn, the guardian of this Relic, and I am tasked to gift humans three answers to three questions. It does not matter to me how insignificant, young or old, or…” Hazel felt his skin begin to crawl as Jinn scrutinized him, seemingly, deep inside his soul. “…lost and broken they might be. There is but one question left, and I will wait patiently until you ask for answers to the unknown, wretched or divine.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em>The man simply gaped at the genie, his mind suddenly coming up blank. He wracked his head over and over but found none. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I can’t seem to think of any question, but I know I wanted the answers for something.” Right then, what he was supposed to be looking for did not make itself present. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Jinn sighed and floated around Hazel.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“That is because in my realm, I get to block the questions you have answers for already. You need only to look inside yourself to know. But this era has been entertaining, never have I had such interesting characters utter my name. First the old man inside the young dashing man, then the little girl. Twice! Oh, she is so clever to use me to buy time. And now you. A man so bullheaded that he can’t find enough willpower to turn his entire mind backwards! But I know all, and I know that what you might ever ask me will be of no consequence. So, I will grant you a small gift. Just this time, I know there is more to come, and you won’t have much use for me in the future. Still want to know?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hazel nodded from his position in the ground, he was blinded by how shiny Jinn was, and how her voice seemed to speak to his very soul. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yes! I may have forgotten the words, but I know I had to know something!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Very true.” Nodded Jinn. She turned her hand in circles, making the smoke whirlpool around her, creating images. “First, I shall show you what you have been suspecting all along, but were too cowardly to confirm, or even believe.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Before him, he saw a younger, colorful Salem fall into the claws of despair and obsession. Saw her descent to madness, to heartbreak and to hate. Saw the possibilities, all of them, extended one over the other, of what would happen if the four Relics were to ever be joined. Nothingness would ensue. In a spark of an instant, all gone. True, no more academies, no more hunstmen, but also no life on Remnant. Hazel saw the bodies of the people slain in the path to get the four Relics, old and young, from all walks of life, all dead with the swing of a sword. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hazel shook his head, bewildered at the sheer level of wreckage that he himself had helped bring about. He looked pleadingly at the woman. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Please, no more. I can’t bear to watch more.” Jinn shook her head disapprovingly.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You need to see, to feel, to comprehend, and then act. You must understand how heavy is the sword you’ve helped hang over your neck, child.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No! Please! I beg you!” he cried as he knelt, his entire boy shaking like a leaf. Jinn ignored him and resumed her motions with her hand, this time, creating a familiar scene, one that Hazel tried to bury inside his heart. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“But you see, the next thing I will show is the last, I must assure you. But you’ve ignored it thus far, because you are selfish, possessive, and deep down, weak.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Jinn once again ignored the man who sobbed when shown his past and pressed on with the images.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>In them, a tanned woman with brown hair braided in two low pigtails walked into an inhospitable village, torn and destroyed by bandits and time. She sent her team members to check different locations of the village, to check for any survivors, or supplies that would help them. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>The young woman surveyed the area, but nothing of importance jumping out at her. Just a tad frustrated, she kicked a pebble, and watched it careen about until it stopped. She blinked a few times confused.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>When she looked down on the clay tiles in the deserted town square, she noticed a trail of what appeared to be blood. She followed the scattered droplets, until she found herself under a bridge. There, she caught a shivering lump covered with a tarp. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Walking slowly to it, she made the shape of two long legs furled to the chest of the person huddling under that brown tarp. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Hey.” The body jumped and back into the wall, a pair of eyes barely visible under the cloth they used as a hood. “Are you hurt?” the figure nodded it assent slowly. “Don’t worry. My name’s Gretchen, and I am a huntress. My team and I are here to help out, okay? Are you hurt?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“….” The person made an undiscernible sound, but to the huntress it seemed like they were trying to say they had been hurt.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It’s okay! Does it hurt too much?” the hooded figure nodded enthusiastically. “Alright, I can redirect pain with my semblance, I will hold your hand and you will feel better, okay? But I need to you come closer, can you do that for me?” she outstretched her hand, a friendly smile easily covering her youthful face.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The figure scurried too fast for her to follow, and the next thing she knew, she had been slashed with something that burnt and ached and bubbled. She gasped for help but was shushed. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Shhh… a little birdie told me your big brother is stomping around your school, making decisions for you. Don’t worry little girl, he’s not gonna do that again.” The man laughed as he wiped his tail clean of blood. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You! Ack! My team will find you!” Gretchen struggled. The man laughed loudly, not caring if he was found out or not. Soon, heavy footsteps echoed over the bridge.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Oh… but you see. I will find them first.” Gretchen struggled to keep her eyes open, terrible pain consuming her. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>The man bowed at her, then leaped up into the bridge. Following a fast ‘Hello ladies and gents’, the sound of a battle ensued. Gretchen’s last waking memories were becoming less and less of her allies’ voices, and more of the murderer’s hysterical laughter. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>The images dissolved, and Jinn looked down at Hazel, who knelt there catatonic. Slowly, he looked up at her, mind strangely blank and absent. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It’s time for me to go, but at least you bear the truth in your heart now. I trust you can choose correctly: life or death.” Hazel mutedly nodded. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>With a pitiful smile, Jinn went back to her lamp, and waited for a question to be posed. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hazel found himself kneeling by the atrium of the Treasure Room, quite unable to move. He took a few minutes to reorganize his brain, and when he felt like he was ready, he stood up and walked towards the door, lamp in hand, and mind made up. </em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Weiss was glancing out of the window wearily, watching as the sun peaked timidly from its rest in the horizon. Behind her, Blake and May restrained a struggling Nora to keep her in bed while Klein grappled with the redhead’s arm as she tried to pluck out the IV line feeding her a pain reliever and hydrating solution. Ruby was talking with María and Pietro, as the latter scrambled to input his daughters coordinates on the team leader’s scroll. Penny had run out, crashing through her bedroom windows, and yelling at herself. The scuffle that ensued left Nora thrashing about, trying to dress in her combat gear, wanting to help out but being too weak to stand upright. Weiss’ entire childhood room had fallen into disrepair, as Penny had battled against herself in erratic intervals. They had to accommodate Nora in Whitley’s room, as the boy had offered in the middle of the uneasy silence that arose from Penny’s whirlwind of an exit.</p><p> It was chaos around her. But Weiss felt like something else was wrong. She had lived a life waiting for the second shoe to drop, and it was with a sinking feeling that even in this impossible situation, the worst had yet to come. But she could not put her finger on it. The night had given her enough horror to last the remaining nightmares in her life. But none of this was close from being over, in fact she suspected she had signed up for the beginning of the end, even if it felt like the end of the world. The thought alone, sent shivers down her spine as she remembered the fall of Beacon.</p><p>“Please, miss Valkyrie, calm down! We know you want to help find Miss Polendina,” Klein pleaded with Nora, who had quieted down, but was angrily clutching the white sheets she was tucked in. The man’s eyes changed from a logical brown stare to an angry red. “And avenge Miss Polendina and kick Ironwood’s ass!” the man blinked and looked at her with tired mint eyes, “But hurting yourself will not help anyone. So please, my dear child, rest.”</p><p>Nora wiped her frustrated tears before they would fall from her eyes but did not say anything. The sound of Ruby and Pietro discussing their next line of action continued as the red-haired girl frowned.</p><p>Faintly amongst the din in the room, Weiss registered the sound of an engine overhead, then the rustle of the roof tiles as a few white clay pieces of the roof fell to the ground. An official-looking Atlas military ship touched down by her front gate, a few fallen leaves scattered around it carried by the wind the vessel was generating. She gasped in shock, the turned to the people around her.</p><p>“Guys! Stop what you’re doing right now! An Atlesian ship just landed here!” Ruby materialized beside her in a shower of rose petals and leaned her entire face into the glass panel of the ornate windowpane.</p><p>“Crap! What if they’re the Ace Ops? Do you think they could track us down with our scrolls?” the black haired girl worried her lip as the engines of the ship died down. Behind her, May put a hand on her shoulder. Blake’s black ears turned this way and they other, trying to detect any sounds that would tell her who were the occupants of the ship.</p><p>“Then let’s go down and give them a round two, I heard you got them good. Don’t worry, I can act as Yang’s stand in.” May offered, her hand leading Ruby away from the window. Ruby nodded her head, then looked back at Nora. Whitley had pulled up a chair by her bedside and was sitting there with an awkward expression in his face. When he noticed Ruby staring, he tried to form a smile, as if to say <em>I got this,</em> but instead all he was able to produce was an uneasy smile that was uncomfortable to look at. Weiss shrugged when she saw the exchange, <em>‘Well at least he is trying. And all it took was a complete disaster.’</em></p><p>Hurriedly, the huntresses ran down the stairs, and across the lavish foyer of the Schnee manor. Assuming offensive positions, Blake and May open the doors as Weiss and Ruby rush in together in a white and red flurry, only to stop dead on their tracks.</p><p>In front of the vessel, its door slid open and the metal ramp cleaved in the soil, was Winter Schnee, her hands behind her back with a grim frown on her face. <em>She looks like hell, </em>thought Weiss, noting the slightly hunched posture her regal sister stood in. Not to mention, the titanium back and arms brace system she had to support her arms. The most shocking, and telling, thing for Weiss was to see her sister, usually in an immaculate and severe bun on the back of her head, with her hair in a loose ponytail. The cold gaze of her eldest sister was deeply pained, sliding to the ground dejectedly away from Weiss’s stare, and back in front of her.</p><p>As Blake and May filed in to stand by Weiss and Ruby, Jaune’s back greeted them when he walked down the ramp backwards. Weiss suppressed a gasp, as Blake and Ruby exclaimed a stunned <em>‘Jaune!’</em> not helping it when their hands covered their mouth in shock. There was a substantial amount of blood on the back of the blond’s white cuirass, strangely shaped like a T. Jaune seemed to be carrying something in front of him that separated him from Ren, whose eyes were red and puffy. They kept filing out of the ship, and when they finally did, what they had been carrying was revealed.</p><p>Ruby ran down to him first, as Jaune and Ren set the white stretcher down. Oscar was heavily hurt; his breathing was short and erratic and Ruby spotted several lacerations and scorch marks littering his abdomen. She looked at his eyes, and her heart sank when she was how inflamed and puffy it was, his right eye was brimming with unshed tears as his left eye was closed with a huge dark purple bruise around it. She moved her hand to push his sweaty hair out of his eyes, but hesitated when he unwittingly recoiled when he saw her hand in front of his face. Instead, she held his hand as she noticed that he must have lost his gloves on the way here.</p><p>She looked back at Jaune and Ren, who looked down in shame. Catching more movement coming from the ship, she prepared to rail her sister with questions, but only surprised herself more when she saw Marrow herding a handcuffed Emerald, his hand was gentle but firm on her right shoulder, as she carried the Relic of Knowledge in her tied hands. She shot her friends a questioning gaze that they evaded, then looked back at Winter.</p><p>“Winter? What happened to you?” Asked Weiss, her voice sounding right behind Ruby’s right shoulder, as the black-haired girl crouched. When the Specialist said nothing, but rather turned her head to look to the side, she felt Blake talk from behind her left shoulder. She looked down to her teammates, who all had varying degrees of uncertainty and worry in their faces. Ruby looked at the entrance of the ship, fully expecting her older sister coming in loudly, but saw nothing instead. Her eyes widened, she swept her gaze around and then back to Winter.</p><p>“Where is Yang?” Blake beat Ruby to the question, the faunus girl clenched her fists tightly. Beside her, Oscar squeezed her hand tightly as he looked at her in desolation. Ruby’s heart began to shatter little by little.</p><p>“There was…” Winter began, her voice distant as she struggled to maintain a straight face. “There was an explosion. I got orders from General Ironwood. To deliver a bomb to the belly of the Monstra. To stop Salem.” She hung her head slightly, avoiding eye contact. She swallowed thickly. “It was our mission. But instead of the Ace Ops, I… Team JYR had offered to do it. And I accepted.” Ruby’s heart sank like an anchor in the deep sea. She scarcely registered Blake falling to her knees beside her, or Weiss taking a step back in shock, as if she had been slapped across the face.</p><p>“Sister… No. Winter. You can’t be telling-…” Weiss began, stumbling over her words, incredulous. Winter shook her head.</p><p>“I am sorry. We were supposed to pick them all up, but she did not get to the meeting spot. I am sorry. I… Waited, we waited for her. But the bomb- it, she took too long. I am sorry. Weiss, I am sorry. I-” Loud sobbing interrupted Winter.</p><p>Ruby clutched at her red cape, a security blanket around her, as she felt she was robbed from all the warmth in the world. She felt numb, and like she was going to burst at the seams. Her cries came as loud wailing, crying like she had never cried before in her life. Her upset voice carried on a cacophony of sorrow as Blake mourned their loss with Ruby. They were inconsolable, heartbroken and despondent in their grief. Weiss knelt in front of them, her legs wobbly and breath unstable, as she felt she was inhaling cotton by the threads. She took her two teammates in her arms, one head in each shoulder, and wailed.</p><p>Ren held onto Jaune, no more tears to cry, as they had spent all inside the ship. They felt an emptiness that had been made known to them the moment they learned Pyrrha had died at the hands of Cinder. It was a very jarring sight to see what remained of team RWBY huddled together as a unit, crying their hearts out. Ren asked himself if that was what they had looked like, all those months ago.</p><p>Emerald watched the scene, the mourning and grief, repeated itself but stronger. It struck her that she had contributed to this somehow. Maybe not directly, but she had facilitated all the grief, terror and chaos that followed Cinder around. Her hands were tainted with the blood of the innocent, and she realized, no matter how much she scrubbed for mercy, for redemption, would those souls come back. Many did not even have a body to return to. She felt the air around her be charged with a feeling she did not understand. She looked at the sky, it was dawning and unnaturally bright, for a day like this were death deserved a somber shawl of darkness.</p><p>“What’s wrong?” Nora’s voice ran from the threshold, a pillowy sleeping robe tied around her body as she leaned heavily on Whitley’s shoulder. She swept her gaze across the front yard of the Schnee manor. Processing slowly, she noticed that Emerald was there handcuffed and holding onto the lamp. Then she looked at Oscar’s bloodied form extended on the floor, one hand laying on his chest, the other clutching Ruby’s cape by its hem as she knelt with her team members. Belatedly she noticed the three girls huddled close together, crying in desperation. With her heart trapped in her throat, she turned to Ren, who was an arm around Jaune as they stood there hunched over and looking at the three girls with a washed-out blank stare.</p><p>“Guys… I don’t like this. I-where’s” she began to question the elephant in the room, when a flash of light caught her eyes, stunning her for a moment. She stopped dead on her tracks, as she raised her eyes to the sky, one palm over her brow to filter out the beam that hurt her eyes briefly.</p><p>The sun had begun to rise over in the horizon, its rays were harsh and unforgiving for such an early hour. They fractured as they touched the metallic coat of the Atlesian ship and spread everywhere. But as she focused her gaze more, she noticed that the sun had a sort of halo, that moved in undulating movements that followed an up and down rhythm.  Nora took a step back, stumbling over Whitley’s feet.</p><p>The sun was not the sun. It was moving, strongly beating down as it came closer to them. It was huge.</p><p>“What is that!?” Nora screamed in terror, as she pointed at a free falling ball of fire coming straight to them. Winter shook herself out of her apologetic silence, unsheathing Brunhilde in one swift motion. Eveyone’s eyes followed Nora’s finger and into the sky.</p><p>The ball of fire came closer and closer, revealing two set of flaming wings, its fast pace slowing down to a lazy flapping as it looked down on them.</p><p>It was both the most beautiful and threatening thing they had ever witnessed, its long neck held a proud head that looked down with sparkling red eyes. The plumage that covered it moved as if molten gold suddenly sublimated into tongues of fire, its tail and crest wavered in the wind expectantly. It opened its golden beak and let out a strong but beautiful trill that reverberated in the manor’s grounds, and along with it, a plume of blazes.</p><p> Slowly, Ruby stood up, supported by her two teammates who clutched at each other like lifelines. Walking forward, entranced by the being that hung expectantly above them, she let her arms fall limp to her sides. The golden firebird looked at the black-haired girl and swooped up to the sky, twirling as it did, then spread its wings as far as they could when it reached the zenith of the observable sky. It swooped down in flames, letting exhilarated cries of happiness. Ruby’s arms gradually raised up to it in greeting against her judgement. Then the biggest miracle happened. It was idiotic, unexpected, and beautiful to look at.</p><p>Slowly, in a show of blazes, the firebird closed its wings around itself in a cocoon and when they opened, it was nothing but a shadow of light imprinted behind Yang Xiao Long, who fell down with her arms stretched, and behind her the image of the firebird guiding her down.</p><p>The blonde, still encased in left over flames, fell down to be received by her little sister’s arms. When Yang’s feet touched ground, she hunched over her sister, her arms around her in a warm embrace. She straightened up, lifting Ruby up and twirling together as they laughed with tears in their eyes. Setting down her sister, Yang blew a huge raspberry to her sister’s cheek as the younger giggled elatedly. Ruby buried her face in her sister’s hair, breathing it in.</p><p>“Yang, I thought you didn’t make it!” chocked up the smaller girl, Yang just rested her cheek against the top of her head.</p><p>“Remember that time you were scared of the dark, and I told you ‘<em>I will light up the night with the love in my heart, like the sun, and I will keep you safe and warm’</em>?” Ruby nodded, wiping a tear from her eyes.</p><p>“Yeah, my teddy lamplight broke and dad couldn’t get me a new one until the next day.”</p><p>“I really did make good on that promise, heh.” The blonde giggled. Ruby smiled at her sister, then side stepped as she looked behind her.</p><p>“Yang?!” Blake yelled from her spot rooted in the steps leading to the Schnee’s front door. Yang extended her arms wide.</p><p>“Honey, I’m home!” True to her feline nature, Blake pounced at Yang, hugging her neck tightly, like she was about to disappear. Yang had put her arms around Blake’s waist, but decided against it when she saw that shorter girl was basically hanging down her neck, her feet dangling as she kicked them about in her joy. Caught in the euphoria of the moment, she grabbed the back of Blake’s thighs and wrapped her legs across her waist, Blake catching on and locking her ankles behind Yang.</p><p>The blonde pressed her prosthetic hand gently against Blake’s cheek, as she held her adoring gaze with the faunus girl. Blake’s eyes turned impossibly soft at the stare charged with love that Yang gifted her, her hand snaking up to Yang’s prosthetic hand on her cheek and squeezing softly. Simoultaneusly, they both leaned in and met halfway, their lips slotting with each other’s tenderly. They kissed reverently, drinking in each other’s feelings. Until a snooty cough brought them back to reality. They separated and looked down at Weiss, who had her arms crossed against her chest, in an act to appear annoyed, but betrayed by the soft smile and watery eyes.</p><p>“I’m sorry to interrupt you two bumblebees, or bird and a bee, but it’s my turn now. I demand hugs.” Weiss sniffled snootily, her lips jutting out in a pout.</p><p>Embarrassed, the two girls separated, Blake tucking in her hair behind her ear repeatedly, while Yang waved her hands around.</p><p>“Aw… I missed you too, you dandy princess-oof!” Yang’s breath was knocked out of her lungs when Weiss collided into her, not expecting her to give her such a potent hug. Nuzzling her head in Yangs side, Weiss squeezed her friend in her embrace. When she felt she had her fill, she looked back to the rest of her team, and extended one arm. Not much was said, just four girls clinging to each other, trying to stay together, and comforting each other after they had lost their sun, but then had it come back to them.</p><p>Looking at the tender scene before them, Ren looked to the front door of the manor and found Nora watching the scene with a softness to her eyes as they brimmed with happy tears. Blinking his own tears away, he focused on her and saw how a shower of yellow and pink petals wafted around her, making her look incredibly beautiful. His own heart thrummed in his ears, and looking down, he saw pink and yellow falling down on him. He looked at team RWBY, saw them encased in an overjoyed whirlwind of love, so thick and dazzling, he could not see where each individual shower began or ended, instead, it surrounded them in a warm embrace. He spared Jaune of his newly acquired vision, though. By now he could read him very well and knew that while he was happy and relieved that his friends came back, seeing Blake and Yang embrace like that brought forth some rather unsavory feelings. He respected his team leader well enough and loved him so much that he did not want to intrude on his moment of vulnerability, of mixed feelings that made him feel guilty.</p><p>He turned back to look at Nora at the same time she had shifter her gaze to him, her eyes searching for his own. He saw how her own shower of pink petals increased in volume, like a bird preening its feathers, and realized some of the petals that fell down on her wafted in his direction. Looking down to his own emotions, he noticed some of his own had also began to reach over to Nora’s general direction. Ren felt his throat lodge with the emotions he could not speak before, struggling in a tumultuous force that threated to spill from his mouth. He acted on impulse, and basically flied at the rate he ran up the stairs, taking two at a time, until he was planted in front of a surprised Nora.</p><p>She lost her footing a bit, but the firm grasp she had on Whitley’s shoulder did not let her fall. The boy beside her craned his neck to see the taller teen hovering in front of Nora. Whitley had grown up reading the room, something crucial if he wanted to leave a room his parents shared before a screaming match was to follow soon. He was unused to two people looking at each other, in whatever intense way that that Nora and Ren were doing, so he carefully took her hand from her shoulder, and sidestepped. His own hand had barely left hers when Ren took her hand in his own and intertwined their fingers together. Whitley rolled his eyes exasperatedly, and stepped back towards Klein, who had been observing all of this with tears in his yellow eyes as he bawled.</p><p>“Ren! I-” began Nora, flush quite visible in her pale cheeks, but Ren shushed her quietly. He slid his free hand to the nape of her neck, the soft hair at the back of her head tickling him slightly. He leaned down to her as Nora forgot how to breathe properly, when he whispered softly, before kissing her.</p><p>“Boop.” Nora’s legs buckled under her as she gripped Ren’s jacket to avoid slipping, but he held her, the hand that was previously hold her hand, secure at the back of her waist, essentially dipping her.</p><p>Yang wolf whistled at them from her team hug, a Ruby laughed at her sister’s antics. Ren helped Nora stand up, still holding her tight as he nuzzled his nose to hers, eliciting a giddy giggle from the girl. She looked down the steps, finding Jaune tending to a hurt Oscar. She screeched in horror.</p><p>“MY CHILD!” she ran down to him, as Jaune helped the boy sit up slightly. Nora looked at Oscar with sad eyes, as she moved to hug him.</p><p>“Careful, Nora, he’s got some broken ribs.” Warned Jaune, but she only harrumphed at him, leaning Oscar’s body to her side, giving him a one-armed hug.</p><p>“This boy needs some TLC! Team JNPR, formation Group Hug NOW!” Ren laughed at her but shrugged. The three of them ended up holding Oscar, carefully, as the couple held hands in between their four-way hug.</p><p>Winter by the ship had regained some color in her cheeks and looked away awkwardly at the sudden displays of affection. Like her brother, she was not quite used to all the hugging and mushy feelings, but she appreciated them, nonetheless.</p><p>“Is everyone from Beacon coupled up or do you all tend to date within the teams? Really? Nobody is single here?” questioned Marrow, his hand sliding comically down the side of his face. Weiss, Jaune and Ruby raised their hands, as well as Oscar’s, whose hand was slightly raised by an excited Nora. Marrow groaned.</p><p>May walked up to him and whacked him in the back of the head lightly, tutting at them disapprovingly.</p><p>“Aw, shut up! This is a great teambuilding exercise, let them be happy!” the older woman admonished, looking fondly at the young huntsmen. “Young blood…” she said, a gentle smile forming in her face. She waited for a few minutes before clapping her hands together, calling everyone’s attention to her. “Okay, guys. Blondie’s not dead, that’s great. Now what?”</p><p>Winter snapped out of her reverie and cleared her throat.</p><p>“Erm, yes. Good to know Yang is with us. Welcome back.” Winter stumbled slightly before gaining her composure. “Now that that’s settled, we have intel here” she looked pointedly at Emerald, who smiled a crooked and uncomfortably at the attention brought on her. “that Watts hacked Penny to raid the Relic of Knowledge vaul-”</p><p>“Yeah, we know.” Interrupted Weiss, glaring at her sister. “She literally just left, blew a hole in my room by the way.” she sighed, hugging herself. “Good thing you came with a ship, ours… is under no conditions for flying.”</p><p>“Erm, what did I miss?” Yang scratched the back of her head, finally noticing that Penny was missing. Ruby sighed, patting her sister in the back.</p><p>“I’ll tell you on the way there, it’s a long story.”</p><p>Weiss walked to Klein, putting a hand on his shoulder.</p><p>“Klein… I think I must ask you another favor. Oscar…” Klein nodded enthusiastically.</p><p>“Yes, yes of course! I’ll see to him right away!” He scrambled towards Oscar, who was leaning onto Nora as she stroked his hair comfortingly. “Miss Valkyrie! I will need your help into putting this young lad back on his two feet, I’m afraid.”</p><p>“I know.” She said, sighing. She looked at Ren, silently asking her to help her up. While she was able to walk some, she was still rather weak, and her muscles ached every time she moved. Standing up against Ren, she saw as Klein and Jaune took hold of the gurney and moved inside the house. Ren turned to look back at her, holding her chin this way and that, inspecting the Lichtenberg scarring along her exposed skin.</p><p>“Nora…”  she pouted at him and turned to look at Oscar.</p><p>“Yeah, I get it. Don’t get into trouble, cuz I’m hurt, yada yada.” She rolled her eyes. “No need to tell me, besides, Klein already said he needs me to look after our kid, right? Gotta get team JNPR in tip top shape after our Atlas gig, yeah?” Ren smiled, his arm around her waist squeezing slightly in support.</p><p>“Um, Klein?” Whitley called for the butler’s attention. “You can put him in my room, it’s right-“he offered, but was interrupted when Weiss put her arm around his shoulder.</p><p>“It’s alright, Whitley. He’s got it.” She looked at her younger brother and grinned. “I am so very proud of you, really. I…thank you.” Whitley looked to the side, clearly flustered from receiving honest praise from his sister.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah. Don’t mention it.” He separated from her and began to climb the steps back to the mansion before he stopped. He looked over his shoulder. “Now what?”</p><p>Blake and Yang each put their arms around Weiss’ shoulders, letting their combined weight crush her slightly.</p><p>“We go to Atlas Academy.” Stated Blake, feeling unbroken and strong. Yang grinned from Weiss’ left.</p><p>“We kick some ass, take names.” Enthused the blonde, her hair firing up a little. Weiss deadpanned at her friend’s antics but found herself smiling.</p><p>“And defeat Cinder at her own game!” Ruby said with confidence, jumping from behind the three of the girls, climbing onto Weiss’ back, eliciting a soft complaint from the white-haired girl.</p><p>Whitley rolled his eyes, a hand covering the smile worming into his face before composing himself.</p><p>“Dear sister, you have very weird friends.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Epilogue: Out of the Frying Pan</p><p> </p><p>Oscar whined slightly as Klein applied the burn salve directly into the healing scorch mark in his chest. A heavily bandaged hand tried to furtively push the butler-doctor’s hand, but Klein only tutted at the boy. Oscar exhaled tiredly, ignoring the sharp pain on his chest.</p><p>“Young Pine, you must know I must apply this so you can get out of my mustache faster!” the man said with patient brown eyes. He blinked; angry red eyes peered back at him as the man held the tweezers up like a weapon. “And then, you can finally kick everyone’s butt in battle!” he laughed maniacally, making Oscar giggle a little bit.</p><p>“Yeah, dude’s right. If we both get better, we can help down in Mantle, but for now, like Klein says, we gotta charge up our batteries!” commented Nora, perched on the bed with him, her legs crossed over each other as she cut an apple slice. Her right hand still quivered when she exerted pressure on it, but it was quite minimal, and her lightning scarring was just beginning to fade. She offered an apple slice to her teammate, who munched on it as Klein kept applying the foul smelling concoction on the circular scar on his chest.  </p><p>“Okay, okay, I get it. We both pulled crazy stunts in the past, now we gotta deal with the consequences of our… what did you call it?” Oscar scratched his chin, looking at Klein with a smile out of the corner of his eye.</p><p>“Nincompoop, hard-headed, i…i…ACHOO…Idiocy!” Supplied Klein, his powder blue eyes blinking his allergy induced tears away as he sniffled.</p><p>“Whatever you called it dude.” Nora said in a singsong voice as someone knocked on the door. “Come in!” she yelled at whoever was behind the door.</p><p>The white mahogany door opened slowly, a pair of shy silver eyes poking out of the doorframe. Seeing her friends awake, the hooded silver-eyed warrior pushed it all the way open, a basket covered with a checkered blanket slung on her arm.</p><p>“Hi! I brought some goodies for you all!” Ruby put the basket on the bed. Nora grinned excitedly.</p><p>“Ooohh! What did you get me?” the red-head slid off the bed, and uncovered the basket, quickly rifling through the items. Ruby slid down the hood of her cape, shaking her head at Nora’s silly, but uplifting behavior. Finally finding what she was looking for, she turned to Ruby with stars in her eyes. “YOU DID NOT JUST GET ME THOSE JUICY ASS ATLAS PAVLOVAS!” the girl gushed, taking the patisserie package in her hands and cradling it close to her heart. “Ruby Rose… you are a saint!” Nora took a first bite and held her cheek dreamily as she savoured the pastry.</p><p>Ruby just laughed and scratched the back of her head.</p><p>“Oh! What about me?” asked Oscar, propped on pillows to help him sit upright. Ruby turned to her friend, avoiding the scars littering his body, as she held a few books and a box with cookies over them.</p><p>“Oh! Hehe… just some things you mentioned this morning when I came over to say hi. Said you were bored, and kinda peckish, so I got you something that will keep you less…any of… that.” She explained, her ears turning a slight pink at the tips.</p><p>“Oh! Really? Wow, Ruby, that is very thoughtful of you! Thank you, you didn’t have to go to the trouble.” The boy fiddled with the books on his lap, looking at the mystery novellas from Dame A. Marple, the prolific detective novella writer. He felt like a vacuum forming in his stomach by being taken into consideration by everyone and looked after, but he felt it more often in situations like these.</p><p>“No, no, no trouble at all, I swear. We were just regrouping for our evening’s patrol back at the academy, and Weiss wanted to walk by the shops. I just… saw these and thought you’d like them, that’s all.”  Ruby sat by the bedside chair nearest to Oscar, turning her entire attention to him.</p><p>Sitting on the other side of the bed, eating her pavlovas, was Nora. The gears in her head were turning as she saw the two of them fumble. Chewing slowly, she looked at the both of them, then at Klein, who looked at the two teenagers with a fond look in his face. <em>Mhm, I think I might be onto something…</em></p><p>“Thank you, either way. Um, how was Mantle? Tell me how’s the reconstruction coming along?”</p><p>At this, Ruby launched onto her day’s events, from beginning till end, and Oscar was all ears for her.</p><p>Somewhere in the middle of her retelling of Jaune’s encounter with the lovestruck single moms of the Mantle area, Nora slipped away with her usual ‘<em>I’m going to go see where Ren is, bye!</em>’. Shortly, Klein looked at the two conversing teens, and exclaimed rather bashfully <em>‘O-oh, it seems I might have forgotten the extra roll of gauze! Silly me. Now don’t mind me, keep on, I shall be shortly.’ </em>Before taking his exit from the room.</p><p>After a while, when the cookies had been eaten, and the books stacked on the bedside table, Ruby and Oscar fell into an easy silence. Ruby turned to Oscar, and noticed he looked more and more relaxed as the days went by. Knowing how much pain he had endured under Salem, she understood he was taking his time to recover, and respected him for that. Hesitantly, she grasped his bandaged hand in her two careful ones, calling his attention to herself.</p><p>“Oscar, I wanted to let you know that you can count on me for anything, okay? I… If I had gone down to meet Ironwood with you, perhaps...” Oscar squeezed her hand closest to his palm imploringly.</p><p>“No! I mean, I think that man had already made up his mind to shoot first then ask questions later. If anything, he could have hurt you too!” He shook his head, the memories of that night were clear in his mind, even if weeks flew by ever since.</p><p>“I am just mad, at myself I guess, and at everyone of us. I think we know why Ozpin kept his cards so close to his chest, but at least we are sharing this knowledge with more people. You know, the more, the merrier. I just wanna say, sorry. That day in the snow, it was kinda uncalled for.” Oscar made a sound at the back of his throat and shrugged carefully.</p><p>“I understand where you’re coming from. I am supposed to carry on Ozma’s heritage but still he kept me in the dark. But we cannot let that control our lives, you know…”</p><p>“Fear.” They said in unison. They giggled awkwardly.</p><p>“Glad to know we are on the same page.” Ruby chirped out, a soft smile on her face.</p><p>Just then, her scroll went off. Scrambling a bit with her hands, she dug around her pack for the blaring piece of metal. She made an <em>aha!</em> Sound when she found it and swiped up to see the message.</p><p>
  <em>“Leaving in five ;)</em>
</p><p>
  <em>-Yang”</em>
</p><p>Crestfallen that her time off with Oscar had come to a close, she stood up.</p><p>“Hey, I-”</p><p>“Gotta go?” He asked with a smile.</p><p>“Yeah…” She turned to him to say goodbye, and as she looked in his amber eyes she lost the thread of what she was going to say.</p><p>“I’ll be here, then.” He smiled a gummy smile, his eyes unwavering from her silver ones. She nodded profusely before taking his non-bandaged hand in her own.</p><p>“And I’m coming back to tell you how Marrow can’t walk on icy roads to save his life.”</p><p>“Oh! But it’s been Weiss all along using her glyphs on him when he tries to be the cool guy!”</p><p>“Exactly! Ugh, they are so dumb. Its like a competition to see who the ‘bigger person’ is. Newsflash! It obviously is Ren!”</p><p>“Yeah!” They both belted out full on belly laughs at the expense of their friends.</p><p>Ruby squeezed Oscar’s hand, preparing to pull herself out of the room.</p><p>“You will be alright, Oscar. Before you even know it, we’re going to Vacuo, and stopping this once and for all!”</p><p>Perhaps without thinking, she raised his hand to her, and touched her lips to his knuckles lightly. When she looked up, she found Oscar looking at her reverently, like she had somehow both pulled the stars down for him but also knocked the wind out of his lungs. Rather quickly, she lowered his hand, and robotically walked to the basket she had left on the bed. She uttered a single and hurried <em>‘Okay, gotta go, BYE’</em>, and she was gone in a flurry of red petals.</p><p>Oscar looked at the open door, playing the moment second by second in his head, before he squealed and covered his face with his hands, flustered.</p><p>Once he felt his heart had gone back to a normal speed, he lowered them, mulling on the last words Ruby said to him. He looked out of the window, and saw his friends boarding the ship in line. A stream of red swirls pushed against all of them, some of them tripping, others just sidestepping. He laughed wholeheartedly at the scene.</p><p>He looked at his hand, which had been held warmly, and uttered to the room the only thing he could think of.</p><p>“Wow.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you very much for reading this beast of a chapter.<br/>Please take care of yourselves and have a good week. Let's live happy until next episode on this nervewracking volume.<br/>I have no idea what the CRWBY must have ins store for us so, lets hope we survive.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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